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Division Spotlight
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Winter Conference and Expo
November 17–21, 2024
Orlando, FL|Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld
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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Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2024
Nuclear Technology
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August 2024
Latest News
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.
Yuki Mizushima
Nuclear Technology | Volume 209 | Number 12 | December 2023 | Pages 1886-1897
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2023.2229998
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new ray-tracing–based calibration method for an Optical fiber–based Reflective Probe (ORP) was developed. This technique enables thickness measurement in micrometers in wavy thin liquid film flow, which is simpler and quicker than other liquid film measurements. First, the relationship between the film thickness and ORP signal was calculated through the ray-tracing simulator. The signal trend showed a steep rate of change within a few-hundred-micron thicknesses, thanks to the emission nature of the step index multimode fiber. The ray-tracing–based calibration was established using the calculated relationship. Second, the calibration method was validated under quiescent conditions. The calibrated ORP measured the thickness and then was compared to visualization. Good agreement was confirmed between the two results at a maximum difference of 20% under 1000 μm in thickness. Finally, thickness measurement for the wavy thin film flow was performed. Airflow (jG = 40 to 75 m/s) was introduced into the rectangle test section, and a small amount of tap water (Q = 30 to 90 mL/min) was injected into the channel plate. The difference in the measured thickness between ORP and high-speed visualization was around 20%. The effectiveness of the new calibration method and ORP measurement including its uncertainty will be discussed.