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Decommissioning & Environmental Sciences
The mission of the Decommissioning and Environmental Sciences (DES) Division is to promote the development and use of those skills and technologies associated with the use of nuclear energy and the optimal management and stewardship of the environment, sustainable development, decommissioning, remediation, reutilization, and long-term surveillance and maintenance of nuclear-related installations, and sites. The target audience for this effort is the membership of the Division, the Society, and the public at large.
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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
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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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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.
Jeffrey A. Borkowski, Gordon E. Robinson, Anthony J. Baratta, Matthew Kattic
Nuclear Technology | Volume 103 | Number 1 | July 1993 | Pages 34-48
Technical Paper | Nuclear Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT93-A34828
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Boiling water nuclear reactors (BWRs) may experience density wave instabilities. These instabilities cause the density, and consequently the mass flow rate, to oscillate in the shrouded fuel bundles. This effect causes the nuclear power generation to oscillate because of the tight coupling of flow to power, especially under gravity-driven circulation. To predict the amplitude of the power oscillation, a time domain transient analysis tool may be employed. The modeling tool must have sufficient hydrodynamic detail to model natural circulation in two-phase flow as well as the coupled nuclear feedback. TRAC/BF1 is a modeling code with such capabilities. A dynamic system model is developed for a typical BWR. Using this tool, it is demonstrated that density waves may be modeled in this fashion and that their resultant hydrodynamic and nuclear behavior correspond well to simple theory. Several cases are analyzed using this model, the goal being to determine the coupling between the channel hydrodynamics and the nuclear power. As predicted by others, the two-phase friction controls the extent of the oscillation. Because of this sensitivity, existing conventional methodologies of implementing two-phase friction into analysis codes of this type can lead to significant deviation in results from one case to another. It is found that higher dimensional nuclear feedback models reduce the extent of the oscillation.