ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Jun 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
July 2026
Nuclear Technology
June 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2026
Latest News
Spent fuel recycling and conditioning topic of U.S.-Japan meeting
Officials with the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management discussed spent nuclear fuel recycling and conditioning with counterparts from Japan during the 13th U.S.-Japan Technical Meeting of the Civil Nuclear Energy Research and Development Working Group, held recently in Santa Fe, N.M.
Constantine P. Tzanos, B. Dionne
Nuclear Technology | Volume 179 | Number 3 | September 2012 | Pages 382-391
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-A14170
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
To support the safety analysis of the conversion of the BR2 research reactor to low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel and extend the validation basis of the RELAP code for the analysis of the conversion of research reactors from highly enriched (HEU) fuel to LEU, the simulation of BR2 tests A/400/1, C/600/3, and F/400/1 was undertaken. These tests are characterized by loss of flow initiated at different reactor power levels with or without loss of system pressure, reactor scram, flow reversal, and reactor cooling by natural circulation. This work presents the RELAP analysis of tests C/600/3 and F/400/1 and comparison of code predictions with experimental measurements for peak cladding temperatures during the transient at different axial locations in an instrumented fuel assembly. The simulations show that accurate representation of the power distribution, especially after reactor scram, between the fuel assemblies and the moderator/reflector regions is critical for the correct prediction of the peak cladding temperatures during the transient. Detailed MCNP and ORIGEN simulations were performed to compute the power distribution between the fuel assemblies and the moderator/reflector regions. With these distributions the predicted peak cladding temperatures are in good agreement with experimental measurements.