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Division Spotlight
Human Factors, Instrumentation & Controls
Improving task performance, system reliability, system and personnel safety, efficiency, and effectiveness are the division's main objectives. Its major areas of interest include task design, procedures, training, instrument and control layout and placement, stress control, anthropometrics, psychological input, and motivation.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
Standards Program
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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Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2024
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Latest News
How robust is HALEU from a nonproliferation perspective?
Shikha Prasad
High-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) has emerged as a popular fuel choice for advanced small modular reactors due to its long power production periods before refueling. It is currently being pursued by TerraPower, X-energy, BWX Technologies, Kairos, Oklo, and other reactor companies. HALEU has a uranium-235 enrichment ranging from 5 percent to 20 percent, whereas traditional LWRs use low-enriched uranium fuel enriched up to 5 percent.
HALEU will provide power for longer durations, compared with traditional LWRs. But could it also provide an opportunity for more rapid proliferation, as is speculated in a 2023 National Academy of Sciences report on advanced nuclear reactors (nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/26630/)?
If a nuclear proliferator conspires to divert fresh nuclear fuel for weapons production when it has not been used in a reactor, the effort required in separative work units (SWUs) to enrich U-235 from 5 percent to 90 percent and that required to enrich from 20 percent to 90 percent are both very small, compared with the effort required to enrich U-235 from its natural abundance to the initial 5 percent.
Technical Session|Methods
Monday, April 22, 2024|10:15AM–12:00PM PDT|Continental Ballroom 2
Session Chair:
David Griesheimer (Naval Nuclear Laboratory)
Alternate Chair:
Valeria Raffuzzi (Univ. Cambridge)
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Nemo: A Centralized Model Representation for Reactor Physics Solvers
10:15–10:35AM PDT
P.E. Burke (Naval Nuclear Laboratory), S.J. Douglass (Naval Nuclear Laboratory), D.F. Gill (Naval Nuclear Laboratory), D.P. Griesheimer (Naval Nuclear Laboratory), M.W. Hackemack (Naval Nuclear Laboratory), B.R. Nease (Naval Nuclear Laboratory)
Paper
Assessment of Heuristics for the Automated Generation of 2D Method of Characteristics Mesh
10:35–10:55AM PDT
Kyle Vaughn (Univ. Michigan), Brendan Kochunas (Univ. Michigan)
Presentation Slides (Visible to Attendees)
Geometric Acceleration Structures to Speed Up Cell Searches in OpenMC
10:55–11:15AM PDT
Saad Amin (Mission San Jose High School), Gavin Ridley (MIT), Benoit Forget (MIT)
A Recursive Subdivision Algorithm for Delta-Tracking on Bezier Curve Geometries in SCONE
11:15–11:35AM PDT
Jamie K. Edwards (Univ. Cambridge), Andrew Davis (UKAEA), Eugene Shwageraus (Univ. Cambridge)
A Delta-Tracking Method that Supports Finite-Element Material Properties in Mesh-Based Monte Carlo Codes
11:35–11:55AM PDT
Pablo A. Vaquer (LANL), Michael E. Rising (LANL), Joel A. Kulesza (LANL), Colin A. Weaver (LANL), Colin J. Josey (LANL)
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