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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
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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Latest News
Norway’s Halden reactor takes first step toward decommissioning
The government of Norway has granted the transfer of the Halden research reactor from the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) to the state agency Norwegian Nuclear Decommissioning (NND). The 25-MWt Halden boiling water reactor operated from 1958 to 2018 and was used in the research of nuclear fuel, reactor internals, plant procedures and monitoring, and human factors.
Jacob A. Farber, Daniel G. Cole (Univ of Pittsburgh)
Proceedings | Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control, and Human-Machine Interface Technolgies (NPIC&HMIT 2019) | Orlando, FL, February 9-14, 2019 | Pages 868-878
In the nuclear power industry, one important class of accidents is the loss of coolant accident (LOCA). This paper presents methods to detect a LOCA that is initiated: (i) while the plant is going through a small transient, and (ii) with a time-varying leak magnitude. The accident is simulated using a generic pressurized water reactor (GPWR) simulator. The fault is detected using a model-based approach with models identi ed using GPWR data. The model-based approach is multiple-model adaptive estimation (MMAE), which uses multiple system models representing both normal and faulted operating conditions. During operation, these models simulate the potential operating conditions, incorporating measurement feedback in a Kalman lter state-estimation structure. Faults are detected by selecting the model that most closely matches the system according to statistical characteristics. For a LOCA, data-driven models of the pressurizer liquid level are derived using rst-principles and system identi cation. In system identi cation, a physics-based model form is derived that contains unknown parameters. System identi cation is then used to estimate the parameter values based on measurement data, providing plant-speci c pressurizer models. For the accident scenario described above, the proposed methods di erentiate between the transient and the accident, and provide real-time estimates of the leak magnitude after it has been initiated.