ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Aug 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2026
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2026
Latest News
NRC issues draft EA/FONSI for Duane Arnold restart
Efforts by NextEra Energy to restart the Duane Arnold nuclear power plant as early as 2029 continue to move forward with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's preliminary environmental assessment and determination that the restart would have no significant environmental impacts.
On Thursday, the NRC posted a draft environmental assessment and a finding of no significant impact for the Palo, Iowa, facility; the Federal Register notice was published on Monday. The Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing is a cooperating agency on the draft EA, as the DOE is considering providing financial assistance to the restart project.
Xue Zhou Jin
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 77 | Number 5 | July 2021 | Pages 391-402
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2021.1904769
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
For the helium-cooled pebble bed breeding blanket concept improved in 2016 and the associated primary heat transfer system (PHTS) following EU DEMO Baseline 2015, an ex-vessel loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) has been investigated with the assumption of a double-ended guillotine break of a main pipe in an outboard (OB) loop of the PHTS. The break leads to helium blowdown into the tokamak cooling room. A fast plasma shutdown followed by a plasma disruption is activated after the detection of the LOCA due to the design basis accident. Regarding three affected first-wall (FW) areas in one or two OB loops, three main cases are considered. If the FW temperature reaches the defined temperature limit of 1000°C, the FW is assumed to be failed such that an in-vessel LOCA results. In total five scenarios are simulated using MELCOR 1.8.6 for fusion with respect to the affected FW areas, mitigated or unmitigated plasma disruption conditions, the options of the dry or wet suppression tank, and the transport of source terms performed in the case of the beyond design basis accident without the plasma shutdown. The transient results are discussed for the time evolution of the accident sequences, pressurization in the systems, temperature behavior in volumes and structures, and tritium and dust transport behavior.