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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.
Jamie B. Coble, Steven E. Skutnik, S. Nathan Gilliam, Michael P. Cooper
Nuclear Technology | Volume 206 | Number 12 | December 2020 | Pages 1803-1826
Critical Review | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2020.1724728
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Electrochemical reprocessing (also commonly known as pyroprocessing) of used nuclear fuel is an alternative to aqueous reprocessing that confers a number of advantages, including the ability to process more recently discharged fuel, smaller resultant waste volumes, and the lack of isolation of plutonium in the product stream. While electrochemical reprocessing systems have seen a significant research and development effort, nuclear safeguards and the security of these systems remain underdeveloped, particularly given the significant differences in operating environment and process flow sheet compared with established aqueous methods. In this paper we present an overview of the current state of the art for several of the most promising candidate techniques for material accountancy and process monitoring measurements for electrochemical separations facilities for used nuclear fuel, specifically passive radiation signatures (gamma spectroscopy, neutron spectroscopy, alpha spectrometry, calorimetry, and microcalorimetry), active radiation signatures (X-ray interrogation and its derivatives, high-resolution X-ray, k-edge densitometry, and hybrid k-edge densitometry; laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy; active neutron interrogation and neutron coincidence counting; inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry; and optical measurements such as ultraviolet visible spectroscopy, near-infrared spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy), and control and process state variable monitoring (cyclic voltammetry and bulk measurements such as level and density, load cell forces, and off-gas monitors). This assessment includes an evaluation of each measurement’s respective modality (i.e., whether the measurement relates to elemental, isotopic, or other properties), published best estimates of measurement precision, measurement latency, and an overall evaluation of each technique’s level of technical maturity. Additionally, this study assesses the most likely locations within the pyroprocessing flow sheet where measurements may be deployed, the physical information required to properly capture the behavior of such measurements, and potential modeling strategies for such measurements. This latter component thus serves to inform future development of process monitoring models in existing and proposed electrochemical separations simulation models.