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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.
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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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Commercial nuclear innovation "new space" age
In early 2006, a start-up company launched a small rocket from a tiny island in the Pacific. It exploded, showering the island with debris. A year later, a second launch attempt sent a rocket to space but failed to make orbit, burning up in the atmosphere. Another year brought a third attempt—and a third failure. The following month, in September 2008, the company used the last of its funds to launch a fourth rocket. It reached orbit, making history as the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to do so.
Jinsong Liu, Ivars Neretnieks
Nuclear Technology | Volume 135 | Number 2 | August 2001 | Pages 154-161
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT01-A3213
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
When released out of a canister, the radionuclides originally incorporated in the spent fuel can still deposit radiation energy (even more efficiently) into the pore water, cause water radiolysis, and produce oxidants in the buffering material. This phenomenon is termed secondary water radiolysis. The oxidants thus produced can possibly diffuse back to oxidize the spent fuel and to increase the oxidative dissolution rate of the fuel.The effect of the secondary water radiolysis has been identified and preliminarily addressed by a mass-balance model. To explore whether the effect is significant on spent-fuel dissolution, the upper-boundary limit of the effect has been set up by considering a scenario that is very unlikely to occur. Several extreme assumptions have been made: First, the canister fails completely 103 yr after deposition; second, the spent fuel is oxidized instantaneously; and third, the radionuclides considered are those that dominantly contribute to radiolysis between 103 to 105 yr. With these assumptions, the spent-fuel dissolution rate can be increased dramatically if 10% or more of the oxidants produced by the secondary water radiolysis diffuse back to oxidize the spent fuel. It thus indicates that the effect of the secondary water radiolysis could be significant with some extreme assumptions. With more realistic assumptions, the effect could possibly become minimal. The subject is worth further investigation.