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Division Spotlight
Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
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
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Constellation seeks rezone for property adjacent to Illinois plant
While no development details have been released, Constellation is asking to rezone 658.8 acres of land it owns around the Byron nuclear plant in Illinois for possible long-term use.
Min Ho Lee (UNIST), Dong-Wook Jerng (Chung-Ang Univ), In Cheol Bang (UNIST)
Proceedings | 2018 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2018) | Charlotte, NC, April 8-11, 2018 | Pages 20-25
Reactor vessel auxiliary cooling system (RVACS) has been developed to make diverse safety system for sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR). In the loss of flow (LOF) accident condition, decay heat from the core is transferred to the reactor vessel by natural circulation inside of the sodium pool. The reactor vessel transfers its heat to the containment vessel by the conduction and radiation through the gap between the reactor vessel and the containment. Finally, the containment vessel releases its heat to the air flow from the atmosphere, which is the ultimate heat sink, by means of the RVACS. Although natural circulation of sodium is an important phenomenon because it determines the sodium boiling, it has not been sufficiently researched for the case of the RVACS. Therefore, in this study, natural circulation of the sodium in the LOF condition was analyzed experimentally to evaluate the maximum sodium temperature in the LOF. Water was used as a simulant for the sodium with the reduced scale. The experimental apparatus was scaled down about 1/25 by length, focusing on the modified Boussinesq number which represents the ratio of heat transfer by the natural circulation to the conduction. Because the modified Boussinesq number was the same with that of the actual reactor, overall temperature distribution in scale-downed apparatus with water would be similar to that of the sodium pool. Difference between the maximum and the minimum temperature of the water pool in the experiment was about 0.7oC, which corresponds to 5.1oC temperature difference of the sodium in LOF condition of an actual reactor with the operation of the RVACS. By comparing temperature difference