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Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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The busyness of the nuclear fuel supply chain
Ken Petersenpresident@ans.org
With all that is happening in the industry these days, the nuclear fuel supply chain is still a hot topic. The Russian assault in Ukraine continues to upend the “where” and “how” of attaining nuclear fuel—and it has also motivated U.S. legislators to act.
Two years into the Russian war with Ukraine, things are different. The Inflation Reduction Act was passed in 2022, authorizing $700 million in funding to support production of high-assay low-enriched uranium in the United States. Meanwhile, the Department of Energy this January issued a $500 million request for proposals to stimulate new HALEU production. The Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2024 includes $2.7 billion in funding for new uranium enrichment production. This funding was diverted from the Civil Nuclear Credits program and will only be released if there is a ban on importing Russian uranium into the United States—which could happen by the time this column is published, as legislation that bans Russian uranium has passed the House as of this writing and is headed for the Senate. Also being considered is legislation that would sanction Russian uranium. Alternatively, the Biden-Harris administration may choose to ban Russian uranium without legislation in order to obtain access to the $2.7 billion in funding.
Ketan Ajay, Ravi Kumar, Akhilesh Gupta
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 196 | Number 1 | January 2022 | Pages 75-97
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2021.1945393
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The postulated dual-failure accident, i.e., loss of primary coolant flow along with impairment of the emergency coolant injection system, leads to peak fuel temperatures. It is well known that the temperature of the fuel assemblies is one of the significant factors that affect the outcome of an accident. Therefore, the present work aims to thoroughly investigate the thermal response of a single channel under postulated accident conditions. An experimental system was developed to capture the steady-state heat and temperature distribution in a representative 37-element fuel channel for a decay heat of 6.13 kW. Ohmic heating of the fuel rod simulators (FRSs) mimicked the generation of radioactive decay heat. Numerical simulation was also performed using the Fluent 19.1® code, and the discrete ordinates method was used to solve the radiative transfer equation. Based on the experimental results and the simulation results, it was found that the maximum Zircaloy-4 cladding temperature ≈850°C to 870°C was in the center ring. The temperature was found to vary around the circumference for each of the FRSs. Furthermore, the outer ring FRSs that had the lowest temperature developed the highest circumferential temperature gradient. In the pressure tube, the average circumferential temperature gradient obtained from the experiment and the simulation was 3.76°C/radian and 3.85°C/radian, respectively. Between the calandria tube and the moderator, the heat transfer coefficient was estimated to be around 822.3 W/m2‧K.