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NRC proposes changes to its rules on nuclear materials
In response to Executive Order 14300, “Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,” the NRC is proposing sweeping changes to its rules governing the use of nuclear materials that are widely used in industry, medicine, and research. The changes would amend NRC regulations for the licensing of nuclear byproduct material, some source material, and some special nuclear material.
As published in the May 18 Federal Register, the NRC is seeking public comment on this proposed rule and draft interim guidance until July 2.
Sherly Ray, R. S. Modak
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 170 | Number 1 | January 2012 | Pages 75-86
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE10-87TN
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Numerical evaluation of the steady-state neutron flux distribution in a slightly subcritical nuclear reactor due to the presence of a fixed external source is considered by using neutron diffusion theory. It has been shown in the literature that in the particular case when keff is very close to unity (say, within 1 mk), many solution techniques face severe convergence problems. In this context, an acceleration method called Accelerated SubCritical Multiplication (ASCM), originally suggested in the well-known neutron transport code TORT, is investigated in this paper specifically for such cases. The studies are based on a realistic heavy water reactor test case analyzed by two-group diffusion theory. ASCM is found to work very well. It is useful even when the distributions of the external source and the fission source are vastly different. ASCM is based on iterative scaling of the overall flux level in the reactor. An alternative way to evaluate the “scaling factor” is discussed. A somewhat new ASCM-like scheme is suggested to accelerate the Jacobi and Gauss-Seidel iterations needed for the within-group calculations. Conditions for the effectiveness of this scheme are discussed. Implications of the present work in reactor kinetics and some other fields are indicated.