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Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
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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
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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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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.
Sigitas Rimkevicius, Eugenijus Uspuras
Nuclear Technology | Volume 164 | Number 1 | October 2008 | Pages 97-102
Technical Paper | Icapp '06 | doi.org/10.13182/NT08-A4011
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The purpose of this paper is to present the results of the experimental investigation of the thermal-hydraulic characteristics for two types of test sections: thin annular pebble beds (i.e., spheres dumped in thin annular slots) and pebble beds placed between cylinders. The experimental results of heat transfer from the spheres and from a cylinder, as well as hydraulic drag for both types of test sections, are presented in this paper. The results of the thin annular pebble bed experiments demonstrate that the maximum heat transfer and hydraulic drag is at the annular slot with the relative width K equal to 1.07 and 1.75 of the sphere diameter. The heat transfer in the internal layers at these values of K is equal to the heat transfer in the internal layers of large (unlimited) rhombic packing. The results of the experimental investigation of pebble beds between cylinders demonstrate that the randomly arranged pebble bed is preferable to the regular rhombic structure from the viewpoints of design simplicity, heat transfer from the cylinder, and drag coefficient.