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Division Spotlight
Human Factors, Instrumentation & Controls
Improving task performance, system reliability, system and personnel safety, efficiency, and effectiveness are the division's main objectives. Its major areas of interest include task design, procedures, training, instrument and control layout and placement, stress control, anthropometrics, psychological input, and motivation.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
Özlem Yilmaz, Michael Buck, Jöoerg Starflinger (Univ of Stuttgart)
Proceedings | 2018 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2018) | Charlotte, NC, April 8-11, 2018 | Pages 900-909
In case of a severe accident in a light water reactor, core melt can be released from the reactor pressure vessel and dislocate to the reactor cavity where it attacks the concrete structures. In order to avoid possible containment failure due to molten corium concrete interaction, the molten corium is to be retained and cooled. Core-catcher concepts considering water-injection via the bottom into the melt layer can lead to rapid quenching and solidification of the melt layer, forming a highly porous structure. The COMET-PC concept relies on porous concrete layers to distribute the water below the melt layer. This paper presents investigations on hydraulics of prototypical porous concretes that have been being used for the experimental verification of the COMET-PC core-catcher system. Pressure losses within these concretes were measured for various water flow rates to determine permeability and passability of the porous concretes. Measurement results were applied in simulations of COMET-PC experiments and reactor application with the COCOMO3D code. The simulation results show that using these concretes in large reactor cavity would not provide sufficiently homogeneous cooling of the entire corium layer unless additional water distribution systems are installed.