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Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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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.
Yoon Sub Sim
Nuclear Technology | Volume 156 | Number 3 | December 2006 | Pages 289-302
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT06-A3792
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In a thermal-hydraulic analysis for nuclear application, a one-dimensional analysis is widely used. In the analysis, averaging is required for the calculation of the cell property, and the accuracy of the averaging directly influences the accuracy of a numerical scheme. While the average value depends on the property distribution characteristics in a cell, conventional numerical schemes do not utilize the information. Instead, they rely on the use of a large number of nodes for their accuracy. There are many cases where the use of a large number of nodes is not practically allowed, especially in a transient system analysis, and the calculation results come to suffer from a large truncation error. To overcome the drawbacks of the conventional schemes, a new approach is introduced to reduce the truncation error by utilizing the distribution characteristics in a cell for the required averaging. The new approach places a node point at the boundary of a calculation cell and averaging is achieved from the properties at the inlet and outlet by using weighting factors that are determined from the cell property distribution. By this approach, it was successful to describe more accurately even a transient where the property distribution was stepwise. Steady-state calculation for a once-through steam generator where the feedwater is heated to superheated steam was accurately carried out with only three calculational nodes. The characteristics and achievements of the new approach are described.