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Nuclear Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
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2024 ANS Winter Conference and Expo
November 17–21, 2024
Orlando, FL|Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld
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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 new build procurement considerations
It may seem counterintuitive, but the best time to enhance the ability to support operations and maintenance for a new plant is before construction starts. This is one of many lessons learned by the currently operating nuclear fleet. As construction and startup of many nuclear facilities was completed, it quickly became evident that the ability to efficiently support operations and maintenance was limited. Most of the information necessary to establish and manage procurement of spare and replacement items, maintenance, and configuration of the facilities was unavailable and had to be gathered on a case-by-case, “on-demand” basis. Absence of necessary information and the associated challenges resulted in the need for staff augmentation and multiyear-long projects to develop equipment bills of material and maintenance programs and to perform technical evaluations for the huge quantities of spare and replacement items being requested.
Hongping Sun, Jian Deng, Dahuan Zhu, Yapei Zhang, Wenxi Tian, Suizheng Qiu, G. H. Su
Nuclear Technology | Volume 206 | Number 10 | October 2020 | Pages 1481-1493
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2020.1713672
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Sodium combustion oxide aerosols are the main carriers of radioactive materials in a sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) during sodium fire accidents. Therefore, it is of great significance to simulate aerosol behavior in sodium pool fires to evaluate radioactive source terms in the containment or environment. In this work, a numerical method has been developed to simulate sodium oxide aerosol behavior during sodium pool fires. The Classical Nucleation Theory has been taken into account to simulate gas-to-particle conversion (GPC). The model has been evaluated theoretically in 280 cases with three main parameters: sodium pool temperature, pool diameter, and oxygen concentration. The correlation established by fitting data points is associated with the sodium evaporation rate. The SFA code has been developed based on advanced sodium pool combustion and aerosol models coupled with GPC correlations. In comparison with the experimental data, the code-calculated average atmospheric temperature, airborne aerosol concentration, and particle size are in good agreement with the data, which indicate that the method is reliable and can be applied in code development in the future.