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2026 Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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Latest News
NRC grants Clinton and Dresden license renewals
Three commercial power reactors across two Illinois nuclear power plants—Constellation’s Clinton and Dresden—have had their licenses renewed for 20 more years by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Rae-Joon Park, Kwang-Soon Ha, Sang-Baik Kim, Hee-Dong Kim, Ji-Hwan Jeong
Nuclear Technology | Volume 140 | Number 3 | December 2002 | Pages 266-278
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT02-A3338
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An experimental study of critical heat flux in gap (CHFG) has been performed to investigate the inherent cooling mechanism in a hemispherical narrow gap. The objectives of the CHFG test are to measure critical power from a critical heat removal rate through the hemispherical narrow gap using distilled water with experimental parameters of system pressure and gap width. The CHFG test results have shown that a countercurrent flow limitation (CCFL) brings about local dryout at the small edge region of the upper part and finally global dryout in a hemispherical narrow gap. Increases in the gap width and pressure lead to an increase in critical power. The measured values of critical power are lower than the predictions made by other empirical CHF correlations applicable to flat plate, annuli, and small spherical gaps. The measured data on critical power in the hemispherical narrow gaps have been correlated using nondimensional parameters with a range of approximately ±20%. The developed correlation has been expanded to apply the spherical geometry using the Siemens/KWU correlation.