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Devoted specifically to the safety of nuclear installations and the health and safety of the public, this division seeks a better understanding of the role of safety in the design, construction and operation of nuclear installation facilities. The division also promotes engineering and scientific technology advancement associated with the safety of such facilities.
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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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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?
Hiroyasu Mochizuki
Nuclear Technology | Volume 170 | Number 1 | April 2010 | Pages 90-99
Technical Paper | Special Issue on the 2008 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants / Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT10-A9448
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper describes the heat transfer in intermediate heat exchangers (IHXs) of liquid-metal-cooled fast reactors when the flow rate is low, such as under natural-circulation conditions. Although empirical correlations of heat transfer coefficients for IHXs were derived using test data of the fast reactors Monju and Joyo and of a 50-MW steam generator facility, the measured heat transfer coefficient was very low compared to the well-known correlation for liquid metals proposed by Seban and Shimazaki. The heat conduction (HC) in IHX is discussed as a possible cause of the low Nusselt number. However, the present results show that HC is not significant under natural-circulation conditions, and the HC term in the energy equation can be neglected in the one-dimensional plant dynamics calculation. Simulations relating natural-circulation transients tested at the Monju reactor were conducted using the NETFLOW++ code with the proposed empirical correlations. Good agreement was obtained for long-term behavior.