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Division Spotlight
Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
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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Apr 2025
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
TerraPower begins U.K. regulatory approval process
Seattle-based TerraPower signaled its interest this week in building its Natrium small modular reactor in the United Kingdom, the company announced.
TerraPower sent a letter to the U.K.’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, formally establishing its intention to enter the U.K. generic design assessment (GDA) process. This is TerraPower’s first step in deployment of its Natrium technology—a 345-MW sodium fast reactor coupled with a molten salt energy storage unit—on the international stage.
Peter Yarsky, Andrew Bielen
Nuclear Technology | Volume 207 | Number 4 | April 2021 | Pages 627-635
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2020.1774260
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff often perform confirmatory analyses using the TRAC/RELAP Advanced Computational Engine (TRACE) and Purdue Advanced Reactor Core Simulator (PARCS) codes to assist in regulatory decision making. Recently, the NRC staff have performed numerous such analyses of anticipated transient without SCRAM (ATWS) with core instability (ATWS-I) scenarios for boiling water reactor license amendment requests to expand the power/flow operating domain. In the conduct of these confirmatory analyses, the staff have simulated oscillatory conditions in the reactor core under certain ATWS conditions that result in regional mode (or out-of-phase mode) power oscillations. The nature of these regional oscillations may present a challenge to fuel damage limits. Therefore, there has been interest in methods to identify the most limiting point in cycle exposure. It has been conventional wisdom that the core is most susceptible to regional mode oscillations when the fission cross section is greatest, leading to the common practice of analyzing these events at the peak hot excess (PHE) exposure point in the cycle. The staff have found some limitations in applying the PHE concept in a consistent manner. In the current work, the NRC staff have developed a more rigorous method for identifying the most limiting cycle exposure by directly considering the core flow rate, the axial power distribution, the first harmonic mode shape, and the eigenvalue separation between the fundamental and first harmonic modes. This method is a more rigorous method to screen the various exposures between beginning and end of cycle. An example case is shown to demonstrate the application of this methodology.