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Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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Securing the advanced reactor fleet
Physical protection accounts for a significant portion of a nuclear power plant’s operational costs. As the U.S. moves toward smaller and safer advanced reactors, similar protection strategies could prove cost prohibitive. For tomorrow’s small modular reactors and microreactors, security costs must remain appropriate to the size of the reactor for economical operation.
Kosuke Aizawa, Yoshitaka Chikazawa
Nuclear Technology | Volume 189 | Number 2 | February 2015 | Pages 143-151
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-161
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Failed fuel detection for the Japan Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (JSFR) has been studied. The present JSFR design adopts a selector-valve (SV) failed fuel detection and location (FFDL) system. In this study, a tagging-gas (Tag) FFDL (Tag-FFDL) system has been investigated as an alternative. Although the identification performance of the Tag-FFDL system has been demonstrated in small and medium-sized reactors, the Tag-FFDL system has not been demonstrated yet in a large reactor like JSFR, which has 1500-MW(electric) power and 562 core fuel subassemblies. Major issues of the JSFR Tag-FFDL system are affected by high-burnup fuel and large cover gas volume. High-burnup fuel leads to a large change of the isotope ratio, which is important for the detection performance of the Tag-FFDL system. Since the cover gas volume in JSFR is larger than that in previous reactors, the tagging-gas concentration in the cover gas is lower than that in previous reactors. Thus, a requirement of the background value is more strict in JSFR. This study investigates whether two issues of the Tag-FFDL system for JSFR would be solvable. Tag gas isotope change in a high-burnup condition has been evaluated regarding transmutation and fission gas release. Taking into account tag gas isotope change due to the high-burnup conditions and large cover gas space, JSFR tagging gas has been designed. The investigation results showed that the JSFR FFDL system can provide an identification capability for 672 subassemblies, which is larger than the number of subassemblies in JSFR combining tagging-gas and burnup estimation. In addition, an allowable background concentration of natural Kr and Xe in the cover gas has been evaluated.