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Division Spotlight
Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
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
June 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2025
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.
Hossein Zayermohammadi Rishehri, Majid Zaidabadi Nejad
Nuclear Technology | Volume 209 | Number 2 | February 2023 | Pages 193-213
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2022.2120319
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Small modular reactors (SMRs) can be a significant option for developing countries with low energy demand. Due to the lack of sufficient experience in the field of SMRs, extensive research should be done on SMRs to improve the performance of these systems. Using dual surface-cooled fuel (DSCF) is one of the methods that can increase the performance of SMRs. In this study, for the first time the core of a NuScale reactor (as a SMR) is designed based on DSCF without any change in core dimensions by analyzing neutronic, thermal-hydraulic, and natural circulation parameters. In addition, according to the departure from nucleate boiling ratio, the uprate of the thermal power in a reactor using DSCF is investigated. For this purpose, typical solid fuels as well as DSCFs under clean-cold and full-power conditions are primarily modeled for the four different lattices that maintain the same assembly dimensions, mass, and enrichment fuels as the original fuel assembly. The effective multiplication factor, and power peaking factor, as important neutronic parameters, are calculated. Then the departure from nucleate boiling, pressure drop, velocity, and temperature distribution calculations, as important thermal-hydraulic and natural circulation parameters, are accomplished via a computational fluid dynamics code. The best core configuration of DSCF for the NuScale core is determined based on comparing the neutronic, thermal-hydraulic, and natural circulation parameters of various lattices and typical solid fuels. Regarding the final result, a DSCF assembly configuration, called a 12 × 12 assembly, is suggested.