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Aerospace Nuclear Science & Technology
Organized to promote the advancement of knowledge in the use of nuclear science and technologies in the aerospace application. Specialized nuclear-based technologies and applications are needed to advance the state-of-the-art in aerospace design, engineering and operations to explore planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond, plus enhance the safety of air travel, especially high speed air travel. Areas of interest will include but are not limited to the creation of nuclear-based power and propulsion systems, multifunctional materials to protect humans and electronic components from atmospheric, space, and nuclear power system radiation, human factor strategies for the safety and reliable operation of nuclear power and propulsion plants by non-specialized personnel and more.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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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El Salvador: Looking to nuclear
In 2022, El Salvador’s leadership decided to expand its modest, mostly hydro- and geothermal-based electricity system, which is supported by expensive imported natural gas and diesel generation. They chose to use advanced nuclear reactors, preferably fueled by thorium-based fuels, to power their civilian efforts. The choice of thorium was made to inform the world that the reactor program was for civilian purposes only, and so they chose a fuel that was plentiful, easy to source and work with, and not a proliferation risk.
Y. Du, H. X. Li, T. H. Liang, K. S. Liang
Nuclear Technology | Volume 205 | Number 1 | January-February 2019 | Pages 128-139
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1494998
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Risk Informed Safety Margin Characterization methodology combines traditional probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) and the best-estimate plus uncertainty approach. Consequently, both stochastic uncertainty and epistemic uncertainty can be taken into overall consideration to evaluate the risk-informed safety margin. Generally, in calculation of the event sequence success criteria in traditional PSA, the result can only be either success (zero) or failure (unity), which is because uncertainties are not properly taken into consideration. In this paper, the conditional exceedance probability (CEP) of a probabilistically significant station blackout sequence of a typical three-loop pressurized water reactor was calculated with the consideration of both stochastic and epistemic uncertainties by using RELAP5. To get the probability density function of the peak cladding temperature (PCT) of a particular sequence and corresponding CEP, random sampling analysis of major plant status parameters and stochastic parameters was performed. It is assumed that the core is damaged when the PCT reaches 1477.6 K. Through the calculation of CEP of this specific sequence, it can be found that core damage will take place in a certain possibility between zero and unity when taking plant status uncertainties and stochastic uncertainties into consideration. Therefore, the core damage frequency (CDF) of any probabilistically significant sequence can be recalculated to get a more precise CEP.
With the application of the computational risk assessment method, not only can the conditional CDF be reasonably reduced, but also the revised model can be made sensitive to a system design change of limited scope. Compared to the traditional PSA evaluation without uncertainty analysis, the CDF of the loss–of–heat sink dominant group can be reduced by a factor of 8.75 (/).