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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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ITA to work with IAEA on advance geologic repository knowledge
The International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association (ITA), a nongovernmental organization made up of 81 member states working to advance the safe, beneficial use of subsurface spaces, is working with the International Atomic Energy Agency to support the advancement of geologic disposal facilities for high-level radioactive waste.
Yoshiro Nishioka, Satoru Kuboya, Yuya Takahashi, Hideki Horie, Mika Tahara (Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions Corp), Tadashi Fujii (Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy, Ltd), Takafumi Tsuji (Chubu Electric Power Co., Inc.)
Proceedings | 2018 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2018) | Charlotte, NC, April 8-11, 2018 | Pages 223-228
The passive debris cooling system provides a means to stably hold and cool the molten core (debris) dropped from the reactor vessel by the heat resistant material laid on the bottom of the containment vessel. As a heat resistant material, high melting point and highly corrosion-resistant oxide is laid on the pedestal and water is injected afterwards to suppress MCCI by the molten core. In the past research, although knowledge about molten core and concrete has been acquired, knowledge about interaction between molten core and heat resistant material is insufficient. Therefore, element tests on heat resistant materials were conducted, various heat resistant materials were screened, and molten core - heat resistant material interaction model was constructed using the obtained findings. Using the constructed model, we evaluated the erosion / heat transfer behavior of the heat resistant material assuming the bottom of the BWR / Mark - II type containment vessel at the time of severe accident and confirmed the MCCI suppression effect by the passive debris cooling system.