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Division Spotlight
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.
Meeting Spotlight
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
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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Latest News
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.
Jiashuang Wan, Pengfei Wang, Shifa Wu, Fuyu Zhao
Nuclear Technology | Volume 198 | Number 1 | April 2017 | Pages 26-42
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2017.1292822
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The objective of this paper is to design a reactor power control system for the advanced small pressurized water reactor that adopts a constant average coolant temperature and a secondary-side steam pressure program. Based on the nonlinear core model with the one-group delayed neutron and simplified nonlinear once-through steam generator model, a two-input and two-output linear nuclear steam supply system (NSSS) model is obtained. Three types of control systems are then proposed and designed on a Bode diagram using analytical methods and second-order approximation. The comparison of the control performance and robustness of the three control systems shows that the double feedback control (DFC) with both power feedback and temperature feedback provides the best performance for reactor power and average coolant temperature with parameter uncertainty due to control rod differential worth variation. The simulations based on the high-order nonlinear NSSS model also show good performance of the DFC system.