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.
Division Spotlight
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Mar 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
April 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
February 2024
Latest News
Can hydrogen be the transportation fuel in an otherwise nuclear economy?
Let’s face it: The global economy should be powered primarily by nuclear power. And it probably will by the end of this century, with a still-significant assist from renewables and hydro. Once nuclear systems are dominant, the costs come down to where gas is now; and when carbon emissions are reduced to a small portion of their present state, it will become obvious that most other sources are only good in niche settings. I mean, why use small modular reactors to load-follow when they can just produce that power instead of buffering it?
Acacia Brunett, Richard Denning, Tunc Aldemir
Nuclear Technology | Volume 186 | Number 2 | May 2014 | Pages 198-215
Technical Paper | Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-40
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The risk-dominant containment failure modes of a pressurized water reactor are reassessed using the current state of knowledge for the phenomena that contribute to these failure modes. Our review concludes that some mechanisms that were considered as having the potential to result in containment failure at the time of NUREG-1150, such as in-vessel steam explosions and vessel launch (i.e., the alpha-mode containment failure), have subsequently undergone sufficient review and can be excluded from further consideration. For other phenomena, such as high-pressure melt ejection (HPME) and combustible gas explosions, our review concludes that substantial uncertainties still exist with regard to modeling in system level codes; for combustion events, careful consideration is still required when making severe accident management decisions. With regard to HPME, sensitivity studies have been performed with the MELCOR computer code to address the effects of modeling uncertainties on containment loading. Sensitivity studies using MELCOR have also been performed with regard to combustion events to examine gas generation, the effect of containment cooling on the potential for deflagrations, and the combustion load on containment. Combustion loads are compared to the NUREG-1150 containment fragility curve to assess the likelihood of containment failure. Our MELCOR analyses agree with the NUREG-1150 assumption that insufficient hydrogen is generated in-vessel to result in containment failure. Sensitivity studies regarding the rate and timing of reflooding a degraded core do not indicate a significant effect on hydrogen production in-vessel or a significant challenge to containment integrity regarding HPME. However, it is observed that recovery actions resulting in cooling of the containment atmosphere could result in deinerting the containment and lead to a sufficiently energetic combustion event that can fail the containment.