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Division Spotlight
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.
Meeting Spotlight
Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2025)
February 3–6, 2025
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
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
February 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Feinstein Institutes to research novel radiation countermeasure
The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, home of the research institutes of New York’s Northwell Health, announced it has received a five-year, $2.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate the potential of human ghrelin, a naturally occurring hormone, as a medical countermeasure against radiation-induced gastrointestinal syndrome (GI-ARS).
Akiyuki Seki, Masanori Yoshikawa, Ryota Nishinomiya, Shoichiro Okita, Shigeru Takaya, Xing Yan
Nuclear Technology | Volume 210 | Number 6 | June 2024 | Pages 1003-1014
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2023.2273566
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the case of a new nuclear reactor, existing evaluation experience is limited; thus, accidents and troubles may occur as a result of such lack of experience. To deal with such situations, it is desirable to use a virtual nuclear plant to reproduce behaviors under various conditions and identify unknown anomalies from the behaviors. Then, when an abnormal situation occurs, one can quickly determine the cause of the abnormality to operate plant equipment and return the plant to a stable condition as quickly as possible. Two types of deep neural network (DNN) systems have been constructed to support the identification of unknown anomalies and the determination of their causes. One is a surrogate system that can estimate physical quantities of a nuclear power plant in a computational time of several orders less than a physical simulation model. The other is an abnormal situation identification system that can estimate the state of the disturbance causing an anomaly from physical quantities of a nuclear power plant. Both systems are trained and tested using data obtained from the analytical code for incore and plant dynamics (ACCORD), which reproduces the steady and dynamic behavior of the actual High Temperature Engineering Test Reactor (HTTR) under various scenarios. The DNN models are built by adjusting the main hyperparameters. Through these procedures, these systems are shown to be able to perform with a high degree of accuracy.