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Division Spotlight
Education, Training & Workforce Development
The Education, Training & Workforce Development Division provides communication among the academic, industrial, and governmental communities through the exchange of views and information on matters related to education, training and workforce development in nuclear and radiological science, engineering, and technology. Industry leaders, education and training professionals, and interested students work together through Society-sponsored meetings and publications, to enrich their professional development, to educate the general public, and to advance nuclear and radiological science and engineering.
Meeting Spotlight
Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
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
August 2024
Nuclear Technology
July 2024
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
NRC engineers share their expertise at the University of Puerto Rico
Robert Roche-Rivera and Marcos Rolón-Acevedo are licensed professional engineers who work at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. They are also alumni of the University of Puerto Rico–Mayagüez (UPRM) and have been sharing their knowledge and experience with students at their alma mater since last year, serving as adjunct professors in the university’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. During the 2023–2024 school year, they each taught two courses: Fundamentals of Nuclear Science and Engineering, and Nuclear Power Plant Engineering.
Ketan Ajay, Ravi Kumar, Akhilesh Gupta
Nuclear Technology | Volume 210 | Number 3 | March 2024 | Pages 457-470
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2023.2229190
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A reactor core overheats due to decay heat generated in the fuel when an effective cooling medium is unavailable, such as in a loss-of-coolant accident combined with a loss of emergency core coolant. If the heat generated is not effectively dissipated, then at extreme temperatures, the structural strength of the bundle assembly may deteriorate, leading to slumping of fuel elements onto the inner wall of the pressure tube. It is essential to examine the temperature behavior of the channel containing fuel pins in a disassembled state in order to comprehend the impact of further thermally induced deformations in the channel during postulated accident conditions. Capturing the temperature of channel components at each circumferential position from experiments is extremely difficult; thus, a modeling tool is necessary to obtain a thorough circumferential temperature profile. This paper presents a numerical study that aims to study the temperature distributions in a 1-m-long pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR) channel containing a disassembled fuel bundle. The channel geometry and the boundary conditions implemented were obtained from the experiment. A temperature profile for each channel element at every circumferential and axial location was obtained. A thorough comparison of the predicted and the reported experimental values was performed, and it was found that the predicted temperature behavior of the channel was consistent with the experimental data. Further simulations with different fuel element configurations and decay powers may be carried out; in addition, the results obtained may be used for coupled thermal-mechanical and thermal-mechanical-chemical simulations.