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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.
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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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Latest News
Vogtle-3 shuts down for valve issue
One of the new Vogtle units in Georgia was shut down unexpectedly on Monday last week for a valve issue that has since been investigated and repaired. According to multiple local news outlets, Georgia Power reported on July 17 that Unit 3 was back in service.
Southern Company spokesperson Jacob Hawkins confirmed that Vogtle-3 went off line at 9:25 p.m. local time on July 8 “due to lowering water levels in the steam generators caused by a valve issue on one of the three main feedwater pumps.”
Roberta Concilio Hansson, Hyun Sun Park, Truc-Nam Dinh
Nuclear Technology | Volume 167 | Number 1 | July 2009 | Pages 223-234
Technical Paper | NURETH-12 / Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A8864
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The present study aims to develop a mechanistic understanding of the thermal-hydraulic processes in a vapor explosion, which may occur in nuclear power plants during a hypothetical severe accident, involving interactions of high-temperature corium melt and volatile coolant. Dynamics of the hot liquid (melt) droplet and the volatile liquid (coolant) were investigated in the Micro-Interactions in Steam Explosion Experiments (MISTEE) facility by performing well-controlled, externally triggered, single-droplet experiments, using a high-speed visualization system with synchronized digital cinematography and continuous X-ray radiography, called Simultaneous High-speed Acquisition of X-ray Radiography and Photography (SHARP). After an elaborate image processing, the SHARP images depict the evolution of both melt material (dispersal) and coolant (bubble dynamics) and their microscale interactions. The analysis of the data shows a deficiency in using the bubble dynamics alone to provide a consistent explanation of the energetic behavior. In contrast, the SHARP data reveal a correlation between the droplet's dynamics in the bubble's first cycle and the energetics of the subsequent explosive evaporation in the bubble's second cycle. The finding provides a basis to suggest that a so-called melt-droplet preconditioning, i.e., deformation/prefragmentation of a hot melt droplet immediately following the pressure trigger, is instrumental to the subsequent coolant entrainment, evaporation, and energetics of the resulting vapor explosion.