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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
D. Ostermann, C. Krumb, R. Krieg
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 179 | Number 2 | February 2015 | Pages 211-231
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE14-3
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
During postulated severe accidents in nuclear power plants, steel sheets and shells may suffer high plastic strains up to several percent. In contrast, for design-basis accidents the strains are within lower limits of the order of 0.2% required by the given rules. In both cases the margins up to structural fracture are of vital interest. In sheets and shells these margins may be reduced by diffuse as well as localized necking. Therefore, this paper investigates the remaining structural deformability described by the uniform elongation strain, where diffuse necking starts, and the quasi-uniform elongation strain, where localized necking starts. The theoretical models developed recently for thin sheets under uniaxial loading are extended to account for biaxial loading. Major findings are confirmed by appropriate structural experiments. Based on these results and their scatter, strain limits are recommended for steel sheets and shells under accident loading, such that fracture can be excluded. The strains caused by the accidents discussed in this paper turn out to be below these limits.