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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Latest News
ANS joins others in seeking to discuss SNF/HLW impasse
The American Nuclear Society joined seven other organizations to send a letter to Energy Secretary Christopher Wright on July 8, asking to meet with him to discuss “the restoration of a highly functioning program to meet DOE’s legal responsibility to manage and dispose of the nation’s commercial and legacy defense spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW).”
R.C. Duckworth, J.G. Murphy, T.T. Utschig, M.L. Corradini, B.J. Merrill, R.L. Moore
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 39 | Number 2 | March 2001 | Pages 976-980
Safety and Environment | doi.org/10.13182/FST01-A11963368
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Vapor explosions are processes involving significant energy exchange between a hot and colder, more volatile liquid. This phenomenon can cause significant pressurization and may cause damage to structures. Historically, vapor explosions have been of interest in industrial processes with molten metals, and postulated accident scenarios involving molten fuel and water in current light water reactors. With the potential use of superconducting magnets in fusion designs, postulated accident scenarios involving water used to cool various structures and cryogenic materials (i.e., helium and nitrogen) required for magnet cooling have to be addressed. A rapid increase in pressure may be seen if liquid nitrogen or helium comes into contact with water. Because of significant temperature differences between the water and cryogenic materials, a rapid heat transfer event similar to a vapor explosion may be observed with the cryogen as the ‘coolant’ and the water as the ‘fuel’. Experiments to quantify this phenomenon were performed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This paper reviews these experiments and presents comparison analyses using the systems code, MELCOR. Experimental results showed that no large ‘shock’ pressures were observed. Thus, one can consider the ‘fuel-coolant’ interaction to be a boiling event controlled by ‘bulk thermodynamics’. We hope to benchmark the code and show its usefulness in determining potential critical issues involving these fusion systems.