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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
Yao Xiao, Lin-Wen Hu, Charles Forsberg, Suizheng Qiu, Guanghui Su, Kun Chen, Naxiu Wang
Nuclear Technology | Volume 187 | Number 3 | September 2014 | Pages 221-234
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-93
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The fluoride salt–cooled high-temperature reactor (FHR) is an advanced reactor concept, which uses high-temperature TRISO fuel with a low-pressure liquid salt coolant. The design of a fluoride salt–cooled high-temperature test reactor (FHTR) is a key step in the development of the FHR technology and is currently in progress in both China and the United States. An FHTR based on a pebble bed core design with coolant temperature 600°C to 700°C is being planned for construction by the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Thorium Molten Salt Reactor Research Center, Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP). This paper provides a preliminary thermal-hydraulic licensing analysis of an FHTR using SINAP’s pebble core design as a reference case. The operation limits based on criteria outlined in U.S. regulatory guidelines are evaluated. Limiting safety system settings (LSSSs) considering uncertainties for forced convection and natural convection are obtained. The LSSS power and coolant outlet temperature, respectively, are 24.83 MW and 720°C for forced convection and 1.19 MW and 720°C for natural convection. The maximum temperature for the structural materials of 730°C is the most limiting constraint of the FHTR design.
