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Division Spotlight
Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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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Latest News
College students help develop waste measuring device at Hanford
A partnership between Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) and Washington State University has resulted in the development of a device to measure radioactive and chemical tank waste at the Hanford Site. WRPS is the contractor at Hanford for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management.
Sung Joong Kim, Lin-Wen Hu, Floyd Dunn
Nuclear Technology | Volume 182 | Number 3 | June 2013 | Pages 315-334
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-81
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Research Reactor (MITR) is evaluating a transitional core conversion strategy for converting from high-enrichment uranium (HEU) to low-enrichment uranium (LEU) fuel. The objective of this study is to analyze steady-state operational safety margins and loss of primary flow (LOF) accidents for the postulated HEU-LEU transitional core configurations. The thermal-hydraulic calculation was performed using the RELAP5 MOD 3.3 code based on 7.40-MW reactor power, which is the limiting safety system settings of the current licensed reactor power of 6 MW. A lumped average and a single hot channel were modeled in each core configuration with radial peaking factors of 2.0 and 1.76 for HEU and LEU fuel elements, respectively. Four natural convection valves and two antisiphon valves were modeled for natural convective heat removal during the LOF transient. Two different hot-channel configurations and full- and side-channel geometries were evaluated because the unique design of the MITR fuel element can form these two types of geometries. RELAP5 calculation results suggest that the transitional core conversion strategy is feasible and that sufficient thermal-hydraulic safety margins can be maintained.