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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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Proving DRACO will deliver
The United States is now closer than it has been in over five decades to launching the first nuclear thermal rocket into space, thanks to DRACO—the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Orbit.
G. Mignot, E. Royer, B. Rameau, N. Todorova
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 148 | Number 2 | October 2004 | Pages 235-246
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE04-A2454
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The CEA/DEN modeling and computation results with the CATHARE, CRONOS2, and FLICA4 codes of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development boiling water reactor turbine trip benchmark are presented. The first exercise of the benchmark to model the whole reactor thermal hydraulics with specified power has been performed with the CATHARE system code. Exercise 2, devoted to core thermal-hydraulic neutronic analysis with provided boundary conditions and neutronic cross sections, has been carried out with the CRONOS2 and FLICA4 codes. Finally, exercise 3, combining system thermal hydraulics and core three-dimensional thermal-hydraulics-neutronics, was computed with the three coupled codes: CATHARE, CRONOS2, and FLICA4.Our one-dimensional thermal-hydraulic reactor computation agrees well with the benchmark reference data and demonstrates the capacities of CATHARE to model a turbine trip transient. Coupled three-dimensional thermal-hydraulic and neutronic analysis displays a high sensitivity of the power peak to the core thermal-hydraulic model. The use of at least 100 channels is recommended to achieve reasonable results for integral and local parameters. Deviations between experimental data and exercise 3 results are discussed: timing of events, core pressure drop, and neutronic model. Finally, analysis of extreme scenarios as sensitivity studies on the transient to assess the effect of the scram, the bypass relief valve, and the steam relief valves is presented.