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Division Spotlight
Nuclear Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Latest News
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
Mukesh Tayal, Lorne D. Macdonald, Erl Kohn, Walter P. Dovigo
Nuclear Technology | Volume 85 | Number 3 | June 1989 | Pages 300-313
Technical Paper | Nuclear Fuel | doi.org/10.13182/NT89-A34252
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The GASOUT computer code calculates fission gas release, activity release, and fission product swelling in a Canada deuterium uranium (CANDU) fuel element during transient (nonequilibrium) conditions such as load following, postulated accidents involving high temperatures, and temporary postdryout operation of fuel. The phenomena modeled in the code include production of isotopes; diffusion; grain growth, both equiaxed and columnar; sweeping by grain boundaries; growth of grain-boundary bubbles; interlinkage of bubbles; grain-face separation; release by melting; radioactive decay; and effect of precursors. These phenomena are described in the code by rate equations, which are integrated numerically within the code. Therefore, the model is dynamic and provides results during short-term transients (few seconds to few days) as well as at the end of long irradiations (few years). This one-dimensional code was developed for accident conditions that lead to high fuel temperature, but it is also applicable to normal operating conditions. The activity calculations account for contributions from both volatile and nonvolatile fission products. They also account for radioactive decay during all the above processes and for the effect of precursors. The predictions of GASOUT were found to be in reasonable agreement with the steady-state predictions (for stable gas) of the NOTPAT code on which it is based. Furthermore, agreement was also reasonable to exact solutions from the Booth diffusion model, to data from the CONTACT-1 series of experiments and from the direct electric heating experiments, and to American Nuclear Society Standard 5.4.