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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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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Latest News
IAEA again raises global nuclear power projections
Noting recent momentum behind nuclear power, the International Atomic Energy Agency has revised up its projections for the expansion of nuclear power, estimating that global nuclear operational capacity will more than double by 2050—reaching 2.6 times the 2024 level—with small modular reactors expected to play a pivotal role in this high-case scenario.
IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi announced the new projections, contained in the annual report Energy, Electricity, and Nuclear Power Estimates for the Period up to 2050 at the 69th IAEA General Conference in Vienna.
In the report’s high-case scenario, nuclear electrical generating capacity is projected to increase to from 377 GW at the end of 2024 to 992 GW by 2050. In a low-case scenario, capacity rises 50 percent, compared with 2024, to 561 GW. SMRs are projected to account for 24 percent of the new capacity added in the high case and for 5 percent in the low case.
John Acierno, Elia Merzari, Logan Burnett, Yue Jin, Emilio Baglietto, Hangbok Choi
Nuclear Technology | Volume 210 | Number 7 | July 2024 | Pages 1223-1244
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2024.2337367
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper presents the development of a benchmark for predicting thermal striping through simulation. This work utilized large eddy simulation and will be used to benchmark future models. The testing domain was created using both the STRUCT and the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes turbulence models and is based on an earlier design of the General Atomics Fast Modular Reactor upper plenum. The plenum features two adjacent, identical hexagonal bundles each with a center-placed axial rod drive, with a hot left coolant stream and a cold right coolant stream. The simulation solves the nondimensional Navier-Stokes equations, with temperature accounted as a passive scalar. First- and second-order flow statistics were obtained after 600 convective time units of averaging. The first-order statistics reveal that the hot jet is damped by a recirculatory flow from the near wall. At the same location, the second-order statistics show strong oscillations both in velocity and temperature. The power spectral density was utilized to determine that a low-frequency oscillation occurs here that is within the range of interest for thermal striping. Furthermore, proper orthogonal decomposition was used to identify coherent structures that confirm the oscillatory behavior, indicative of thermal striping. Overall, this benchmark can aid in the development of future models for predicting thermal striping in nuclear reactors, potentially leading to improved reactor safety and performance.