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Decommissioning & Environmental Sciences
The mission of the Decommissioning and Environmental Sciences (DES) Division is to promote the development and use of those skills and technologies associated with the use of nuclear energy and the optimal management and stewardship of the environment, sustainable development, decommissioning, remediation, reutilization, and long-term surveillance and maintenance of nuclear-related installations, and sites. The target audience for this effort is the membership of the Division, the Society, and the public at large.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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Proving DRACO will deliver
The United States is now closer than it has been in over five decades to launching the first nuclear thermal rocket into space, thanks to DRACO—the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Orbit.
Tetsuo Sawada, Hisashi Ninokata, Hirofumi Tomozoe, Hiroshi Endo
Nuclear Technology | Volume 130 | Number 3 | June 2000 | Pages 242-251
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT130-242
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An outline is given of simple evaluation models for a recriticality in an attempt to construct a fast reactor core that has high potential to terminate an accident and prevent its progression, under postulated core-damage conditions, into further disruption of the degraded core and into possible recriticality leading to an energetic power excursion. The basic idea to prevent recriticality events is to remove a certain amount of fuel material out of the core in order to keep the core subcritical. Based on the simplified models, general guidelines are given that minimize the amount of fuel removal necessary to avoid recriticality events. Multigroup two-dimensional diffusion calculations are also performed to ascertain the tendency obtained by the simple model for the reactivity insertion due to a core collapse. In the sense of controlled material relocation, the fraction of core materials is identified that should be preferentially removed out of the core to eliminate the recriticality potential.