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Materials Science & Technology
The objectives of MSTD are: promote the advancement of materials science in Nuclear Science Technology; support the multidisciplines which constitute it; encourage research by providing a forum for the presentation, exchange, and documentation of relevant information; promote the interaction and communication among its members; and recognize and reward its members for significant contributions to the field of materials science in nuclear technology.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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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Glass strategy: Hanford’s enhanced waste glass program
The mission of the Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection (ORP) is to complete the safe cleanup of waste resulting from decades of nuclear weapons development. One of the most technologically challenging responsibilities is the safe disposition of approximately 56 million gallons of radioactive waste historically stored in 177 tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
ORP has a clear incentive to reduce the overall mission duration and cost. One pathway is to develop and deploy innovative technical solutions that can advance baseline flow sheets toward higher efficiency operations while reducing identified risks without compromising safety. Vitrification is the baseline process that will convert both high-level and low-level radioactive waste at Hanford into a stable glass waste form for long-term storage and disposal.
Although vitrification is a mature technology, there are key areas where technology can further reduce operational risks, advance baseline processes to maximize waste throughput, and provide the underpinning to enhance operational flexibility; all steps in reducing mission duration and cost.
Cole Gentry, Kang Seog Kim, G. Ivan Maldonado
Nuclear Technology | Volume 204 | Number 3 | December 2018 | Pages 299-317
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1486158
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper presents the development of a lattice physics–to–core simulator two-step procedure for the rapid analysis of the Advanced High Temperature Reactor (AHTR). Lattice physics, reflector, and control blade models were developed from which cross-section libraries could be generated for a nodal core simulator. Few-group structures for the core simulator were also generated to account for the neutronic characteristics of AHTR. After developing the AHTR two-step procedure, cross-section libraries were generated using the SERPENT continuous-energy Monte Carlo code. These libraries were then used in the core simulator NESTLE to perform full-core calculations, which were in turn benchmarked against reference SERPENT full-core models. Benchmarking results showed reasonable accuracy of the developed two-step procedure but revealed an inherent inadequacy in the one-dimensional radial reflector model and showed a likely need for a greater number of energy groups than were used in this study.