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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
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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February 2024
Latest News
From South Korea to Belgium: Testing a high-density research reactor fuel
The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute has developed a high-density uranium silicide fuel designed to replace high-enriched uranium in research reactors. Recent irradiation tests appear to be successful, KAERI reports, which means the fuel could be commercialized to continue a key global nuclear nonproliferation effort—converting research reactors to run on low-enriched uranium fuel.
Krishna Podila, Qi Chen, Yanfei Rao
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 193 | Number 12 | December 2019 | Pages 1379-1393
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2019.1627177
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
At present, no clear guidelines exist for modeling non-water-cooled small modular reactors (SMRs) despite the rising need for high-fidelity simulation tools to support regulators and the industry. Most SMR concepts currently under the Canadian prelicensing review adopted non-water-cooled–reactor technologies [molten salt reactor (MSR), gas-cooled reactor, and liquid metal–cooled reactor] that are new for Canada. There is a need for a modeling tool set that is broadly applicable for the assessment of advanced technologies used in SMRs. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can be used in performance evaluation and safety analysis of non-water-cooled SMRs for modeling three-dimensional (3-D) fluid flow and heat transfer in geometries of arbitrary complexity without resorting to geometry-specific empirical correlations. This study investigates the capabilities of existing models within a commercial CFD code to simulate the flow and heat transfer characteristics in a MSR configuration. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) configuration was simulated in this study using a stand-alone CFD approach, and CFD predictions were assessed with ORNL data. Intricate geometry details within the MSRE core were included in the computational model to study the associated geometric effects. The results obtained in this study showcased the ability of CFD to predict 3-D effects within the computational domain especially at the lower plenums. The predicted trends for the temperature rise in the fuel and moderator within the core were in good agreement with the ORNL data. The results presented in this paper constitute the first step in developing Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’ capability for CFD modeling of non-water SMRs.