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Division Spotlight
Fusion Energy
This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
Meeting Spotlight
Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
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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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Taking shape: Fusion energy ecosystems built with public-private partnerships
It’s possible to describe fusion in simple terms: heat and squeeze small atoms to get abundant clean energy. But there’s nothing simple about getting fusion ready for the grid.
Private developers, national lab and university researchers, suppliers, and end users working toward that goal are developing a range of complex technologies to reach fusion temperatures and pressures, confounded by science and technology gaps linked to plasma behavior; materials, diagnostics, and electronics for extreme environments; fuel cycle sustainability; and economics.
Ernst-Arndt Reinecke, Stephan Kelm, Paul-Martin Steffen, Michael Klauck,Hans-Josef Allelein
Nuclear Technology | Volume 196 | Number 2 | November 2016 | Pages 355-366
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NT16-7
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In order to reduce the accumulation of hydrogen and thus to mitigate the risk of combustion, many countries have installed passive autocatalytic recombiners (PARs) within light water reactor containments. The severe hydrogen combustion events of the recent Fukushima Daiichi accident are likely to incentivize an increased demand in upgrading nuclear power plants with PARs. Numerical simulation is an important tool for assessing PAR operation during a severe accident in terms of efficiency and proper installation. Advanced numerical PAR models are required for the challenging boundary conditions during a severe accident, for example, low oxygen amount, high steam amount, and presence of carbon monoxide. The REKO-DIREKT code has been developed in order to provide a PAR model capable of simulating complex PAR phenomena and at the same time being suitable for implementation in thermal-hydraulic codes.
The development of REKO-DIREKT was supported by small-scale experiments performed at Forschungszentrum Juelich in the REKO facilities. These facilities allow the study of PAR-related single phenomena such as reaction kinetics under different conditions including variation of steam, oxygen, and carbon monoxide (REKO-3) and the chimney effect (REKO-4). Recently, the code has been validated against full-scale experiments performed in the Thermal-Hydraulics, Hydrogen, Aerosols, Iodine (THAI) facility at Eschborn, Germany, in the framework of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development/Nuclear Energy Agency THAI project. By this, the code has proven its applicability for different PAR designs and for a broad range of boundary conditions (pressure of up to 3 bars, steam amount up to 60 vol %, low-oxygen conditions). REKO-DIREKT has been successfully implemented in the commercial computational fluid dynamics code ANSYS-CFX as well as in the LP code COCOSYS [Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit (GRS), Germany].