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Division Spotlight
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
Nichols
The Oak Ridger has published the latest in a series of articles about General Kenneth D. Nichols, the Manhattan Project, and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The series has been produced by Nichols’ grandniece Barbara Rogers Scollin and Oak Ridge (Tenn.) city historian David Ray Smith. Gen. Nichols (1907–2000) was the district engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District during the Manhattan Project.
As Smith and Scollin explain, Nichols “had supervision of the research and development connected with, and the design, construction, and operation of, all plants required to produce plutonium-239 and uranium-235, including the construction of the towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. The responsibility of his position was massive as he oversaw a workforce of both military and civilian personnel of approximately 125,000; his Oak Ridge office became the center of the wartime atomic energy’s activities.”
Taeseung Lee, Richard B. Vilim (ANL)
Proceedings | Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control, and Human-Machine Interface Technolgies (NPIC&HMIT 2019) | Orlando, FL, February 9-14, 2019 | Pages 209-221
The Supervisory Control System (SCS) provides overall coordination of the plant actuators that includes automatically regulating process variables so that performance goals are safely met for all operating modes. The system during normal electric power production operates through a hierarchical structure with steam demand supplied as an input at the top level, and based on this value, coordinated set points are issued to lower level sub-system controllers. Through the use of the Supervisory Control System, hot-side temperatures can be maintained near-constant during transients so that thermal fatigue is significantly reduced from otherwise. The design strategy for the control system regards the plant response to a change in electric generator load as consisting of two components: steady-state and transient. There is the equilibrium state the plant will reach in asymptotic time (steady-state) in response to the changed condition. The steady-state control algorithm, or Load Schedule as it is known, manages steady-state temperatures. There is the dynamic component of the response (transient) which can be regarded as superimposed on the asymptotic state. The Single-Input Single-Output (SISO) Controllers manage the dynamic response component. In this work, the Supervisory Control System is designed for electric power operation of a pool-type metallic-fueled Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (SFR). 10% step and 5%/min ramp load change cases were simulated with a one-dimensional system analysis code to assess the performance of the SISO controllers.