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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 8–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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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Nuclear News 40 Under 40: The wait is over
Following the enthusiastic response from the nuclear community in 2024 for the inaugural NN 40 Under 40, the Nuclear News team knew we had to take up the difficult task in 2025 of turning it into an annual event—though there was plenty of uncertainty as to how the community would receive a second iteration this year. That uncertainty was unfounded, clearly, as the tight-knit nuclear community embraced the chance to celebrate its up-and-coming generation of scientists, engineers, and policy makers who are working to grow the influence of this oft-misunderstood technology.
J. T. Birkholzer, N. Halecky, S. W. Webb, P. F. Peterson, G. S. Bodvarsson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 163 | Number 1 | July 2008 | Pages 147-164
Technical Paper | High-Level Radioactive Waste Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT08-A3978
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In heated drifts such as those designated for emplacement of radioactive waste at the proposed geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, temperature gradients cause natural-convection processes that may significantly influence the moisture conditions in the drifts and in the surrounding fractured rock. Large-scale convection cells in the heated drifts would provide an effective mechanism for turbulent mixing and axial transport of vapor generated from evaporation of pore water in the nearby formation. As a result, vapor would be transported from the elevated-temperature sections of the drifts into cool end sections (where no waste is emplaced), would condense there, and subsequently would drain into underlying rock units. To study these processes, we have developed a new simulation method that couples existing tools for simulating thermal-hydrological conditions in the fractured formation with a module that approximates turbulent natural convection in heated emplacement drifts. The new method simultaneously handles (a) the flow and energy transport processes in the fractured rock, (b) the flow and energy transport processes in the cavity, and (c) the heat and mass exchange at the rock-cavity interface. An application is presented studying the future thermal-hydrological conditions within and near a representative waste emplacement drift at Yucca Mountain. Particular focus is on the potential for condensation along the emplacement section, a possible result of heat output differences between individual waste packages.