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Division Spotlight
Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Winter Conference and Expo
November 17–21, 2024
Orlando, FL|Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld
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
From remediation to production: The DOE’s Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative
On July 28, 2023, the Department of Energy launched its Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative, an effort to repurpose underutilized DOE-owned property—portions of which were previously used in the nation’s nuclear weapons program—into the sites of clean-energy generation.
Antoine Guelfi, Dominique Bestion, Marc Boucker, Pascal Boudier, Philippe Fillion, Marc Grandotto, Jean-Marc Hérard, Eric Hervieu, Pierre Péturaud
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 156 | Number 3 | July 2007 | Pages 281-324
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE05-98
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The NEPTUNE project constitutes the thermal-hydraulic part of the long-term Electricité de France and Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique joint research and development program for the next generation of nuclear reactor simulation tools. This program is also financially supported by the Institut de Radioprotection et Sûreté Nucléaire and AREVA NP. The project aims at developing a new software platform for advanced two-phase flow thermal hydraulics covering the whole range of modeling scales and allowing easy multiscale and multidisciplinary calculations. NEPTUNE is a fully integrated project that covers the following fields: software development, research in physical modeling and numerical methods, development of advanced instrumentation techniques, and performance of new experimental programs.The analysis of the industrial needs points out that three main simulation scales are involved. The system scale is dedicated to the overall description of the reactor. The component or subchannel scale allows three-dimensional computations of the main components of the reactors: cores, steam generators, condensers, and heat exchangers. The current generation of system and component codes has reached a very high level of maturity for industrial applications. The third scale, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in open medium, allows one to go beyond the limits of the component scale for a finer description of the flows. This scale opens promising perspectives for industrial simulations, and the development and validation of the NEPTUNE CFD module have been a priority since the beginning of the project. It is based on advanced physical models (two-fluid or multifield model combined with interfacial area transport and two-phase turbulence) and modern numerical methods (fully unstructured finite volume solvers). For the system and component scales, prototype developments have also started, including new physical models and numerical methods.In addition to scale-specific developments, the generalized use of multiscale calculations is also expected to be a major means to meet the industrial needs. The coexistence of different simulation scales together with the fast growth of computing power multiplies the computation possibilities. In particular, thanks to the recent progress of CFD tools, one can imagine local zooms in some critical parts of the reactor components. The NEPTUNE multiscale platform will offer advanced coupling functionalities based on state-of-the-art software architecture and new numerical coupling techniques.Finally, despite the existence of a huge worldwide database of two-phase flow experiments, the validation of new physical models (more local, more complex) requires new experimental data. That is the reason why for several years we have been developing new instrumentation techniques such as four-sensor optical probes, X-ray tomography, and hot-wire anemometry. These techniques will be used for new experimental programs (currently being launched) that have been defined in connection with the high-priority industrial applications (departure from nucleate boiling, pressurized thermal shock, loss-of-coolant accident, etc.).