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Division Spotlight
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.
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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Remembering Joseph M. Hendrie
Joseph M. Hendrie
To those of us who knew Joe, even prior to his appointment as chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, it is an understatement to say that he was a larger-than-life member of the nuclear science and technology enterprise. He was best known to the broader community for two major accomplishments: the design and construction of the High Flux Beam Reactor (HFBR) at Brookhaven National Laboratory and the creation of the standard review plan (SRP) for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
In addition to the products of these endeavors becoming major fundaments to their respective communities, they were uniquely Joe. The safety analysis report for the HFBR was written essentially single-handedly by him. This was true of the SRP as well, which became the key safety review document for the NRC as it performed safety reviews for the growing number of power reactor applications in the United States. His deep technical knowledge of nuclear engineering and his extraordinary management skills made this possible.
Tunc Aldemir, Don W. Miller, Michael Stovsky, Jason Kirschenbaum, Paolo Bucci, L. Anthony Mangan, Audeen Fentiman, Steven A. Arndt
Nuclear Technology | Volume 159 | Number 2 | August 2007 | Pages 167-191
Technical Paper | Nuclear Plant Operations and Control | doi.org/10.13182/NT07-A3863
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Nuclear power plants are in the process of replacing the existing analog instrumentation and control (I&C) systems with digital technology. Digital systems distinguish themselves from other control and instrumentation systems mainly due to the presence of active software/firmware as well as hardware. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission policy statement on the use of probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) methods in nuclear regulatory activities encourages licensees to use PRA and associated analyses to support the licensing applications to the extent supported by the state-of-the-art and data. Before digital system reviews can be performed in a risk-informed manner, PRAs will need the capability to model digital I&C systems. The available methodologies for the reliability and risk modeling of digital I&C systems are reviewed with respect to their capability to account for the features of the digital I&C systems relevant to digital reactor protection and control systems, as well as the integrability of the resulting model into an existing PRA. It is concluded that the methodologies that rank as the top two with most positive features and least negative or uncertain features (using subjective criteria based on reported experience) are the dynamic flowgraph methodology and the Markov methodology combined with the cell-to-cell mapping technique, each with different advantages and limitations.