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Developing a new regulatory framework for advanced reactors: Update on Part 53
White
The American Nuclear Society’s Risk-informed, Performance-based Principles and Policy Committee (RP3C) on March 29 held another presentation in its monthly Community of Practice (CoP) series. The presenter, Patrick White with the Nuclear Innovation Alliance (NIA), talked about the current status of efforts to develop a new regulatory framework for advanced reactors—known as 10 CFR Part 53 or simply Part 53. White serves as the research director of the NIA, where he leads their research as well as analysis-based stakeholder and policymaker engagement and education. White’s March 29 presentation is publicly available on YouTube and at ANS’s publication platform Nuclear Science and Technology Open Research (NSTOR).
RP3C chair N. Prasad Kadambi opened the CoP with brief introductory remarks about the RP3C before he welcomed White as the session’s presenter.
White covered three main topics: the history of the existing regulatory frameworks for new reactors, progress to date on the development of the Part 53 rule for advanced reactors, and the current status and next steps for the Part 53 rulemaking process.
Bryan Minor, Kirk Mathews
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 120 | Number 3 | July 1995 | Pages 165-186
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE95-A24117
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The exponential characteristic (EC) spatial quadrature for discrete ordinates neutral particle transport previously introduced in slab geometry is extended here to x-y geometry with rectangular cells. The method is derived and compared with current methods. It is similar to the linear characteristic (LC) quadrature (a linear-linear moments method) but differs by assuming an exponential distribution of the scattering source within each cell, S(x) = a exp(bx + cy), whose parameters are rootsolved to match the known (from the previous iteration) spatial average and first moments of the source over the cell. Similarly, EC assumes exponential distributions of flux along cell edges through which particles enter the cell, with parameters chosen to match the average and first moments of flux, as passed from the adjacent, upstream cells (or as determined by boundary conditions). Like the linear adaptive (LA) method, EC is positive and nonlinear. It is more accurate than LA and does not require subdivision of cells. The nonlinearity has not interfered with convergence. The exponential moment functions, which were introduced with the slab geometry method, are extended to arbitrary dimensions (numbers of arguments) and used to avoid numerical ill conditioning. As in slab geometry, the method approaches O(Δx4) global truncation error on fine-enough meshes, while the error is insensitive to mesh size for coarse meshes. Performance of the method is compared with that of the step characteristic, LC, linear nodal, step adaptive, and LA schemes. The EC method is a strong performer with scattering ratios ranging from 0 to 0.9 (the range tested), particularly so for lower scattering ratios. As in slab geometry, EC is computationally more costly per cell than current methods but can be accurate with very thick cells, leading to increased computational efficiency on appropriate problems.