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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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August 2024
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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.
Jarod Wilson, Sara Hauptman, Akshay Dave, Kaichao Sun, Lin-wen Hu (MIT), Ruimin Ji, Yang Zou (CAS)
Proceedings | 2018 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2018) | Charlotte, NC, April 8-11, 2018 | Pages 76-83
The growing global demand for emission-free energy is creating a market for advanced Generation-IV NPP, and the Fluoride salt-cooled High-temperature Reactor design with a pebble-type fuel is a promising candidate. However, this design also brings unique challenges, namely evaluating the effects of the fuel’s distribution and dynamic movement. Generating explicitly described fuel pebble loading patterns is non-trivial. This study serves two main purposes: 1) to investigate the neutronic performance of pebble type fuel within the TMSR-SF1, and 2) to conduct a preliminary comparison between pebble coordinate generation methods. The first method of coordinate generation, the Discrete Element Method (DEM), is a particle-tracking model which accounts for inter-particle forces. While this method generates packing distributions closer to real-world scenarios, it is computationally intense. The alternative method analyzed is a mathematical model (MM), which fills arbitrary domains through simple geometric rules on the addition of particles. This method, while less realistic, generates coordinates significantly faster. Afterwards, fuel pebble coordinates from both methods are utilized to generate inputs for high-fidelity neutronics modelling. The results of these simulations, with the aid of various tools within Python, allowed for the neutronic analysis of the core, specifically when considering the eigenvalues of each coordinate set, and the fission power distribution within the fuel pebbles. It was found that the packing fraction in the axial direction to be consistent within the MM coordinate generation method, and the general trends similar between it and DEM-generated coordinates. Additionally, the eigenvalues of the simulated core were found to be proportional to the number of pebbles within the core. Finally, the fission power distribution of the cores was found to be qualitatively consistent both within many sets of MM-generated coordinates, and in comparisons of the two coordinate generation methods.