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Division Spotlight
Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
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.
Jae-Seon Cho, Kune Y. Suh, Chang-Hyun Chung, Rae-Joon Park, Sang-Baik Kim
Nuclear Technology | Volume 148 | Number 3 | December 2004 | Pages 313-324
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT04-A3569
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An experimental study is performed to investigate the natural convection heat transfer characteristics and the solidification of the molten metal pool concurrently with forced convective boiling of the overlying coolant to simulate a severe accident in a nuclear power plant. The relationship between the Nusselt number (Nu) and the Rayleigh number (Ra) in the molten metal pool region is determined and compared with the correlations in the literature and experimental data with subcooled water. Given the same Ra condition, the present experimental results for Nu of the liquid metal pool with coolant boiling are found to be higher than those predicted by the existing correlations or measured from the experiment with subcooled boiling. To quantify the observed effect of the external cooling on the natural convection heat transfer rate from the molten pool, it is proposed to include an additional dimensionless group characterizing the temperature gradients in the molten pool and in the external coolant region. Starting from the Globe and Dropkin correlation, engineering correlations are developed for the enhancement of heat transfer in the molten metal pool when cooled by an overlying coolant. The new correlations for predicting natural convection heat transfer are applicable to low-Prandtl-number (Pr) materials that are heated from below and solidified by the external coolant above. Results from this study may be used to modify the current model in severe accident analysis codes.