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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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A new ANSI/ANS standard for liquid metal fire protection published
ANSI/ANS-54.8-2025, Liquid Metal Fire Protection in LMR Plants, received approval from the American National Standards Institute on September 2 and is now available for purchase.
The 2025 edition is a reinvigoration of the withdrawn ANS-54.8-1988 of the same title. The Advanced Reactor Codes and Standards Collaborative (ARCSC) identified the need for a current version of the standard via an industry survey.
Typical liquid metal reactor designs use liquid sodium as the coolant for both the primary and intermediate heat-transport systems. In addition, liquid sodium and NaK (a mixture of sodium and potassium that is liquid at room temperature) are often used in auxiliary heat-removal systems. Since these liquid metals can react readily with oxygen, water, and other compounds, special precautions must be taken in the design, construction, testing, and maintenance of the sodium/NaK systems to ensure that the potential for leakage is very small.
R. A. Bennett
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 17 | Number 1 | September 1963 | Pages 131-143
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE63-A17218
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Integral experiments have been conducted to study rethermalization in moderating media having temperature discontinuities. Neutron absorption rates of Cu63, Au197, and Lu176 have been observed near these discontinuities in the temperatures of concentric annuli of graphite and of water and graphite systems. For this report the data have been analyzed with a two-thermal-group diffusion model of the space and energy distribution of the thermal neutrons. Cross sections and relaxation distances for neutron rethermalization in water and graphite have been inferred from the analyses. These rethermalization cross sections are integral representations of the scattering kernel. The relaxation distances were found to be shorter for the rethermalization of cold neutrons in warm graphite than for the rethermalization of warm neutrons in cold graphite. The cross section of hot graphite for rethermalization of 300°K neutrons increases monotonically to near the free gas value, 0.0614 cm−1, as the graphite temperature increases to 850°K. The cross section of 300°K graphite for rethermalization of 850°K neutrons is well below the free gas value, in agreement with theoretical calculations. Within the limits of the heavy gas model one can define an effective mass in terms of the rethermalization cross section. Effective masses of graphite reported here are comparable with those inferred by others from lattice-spectrum measurements. The rethermalization cross sections of 300°K water presented here yield effective masses of the water molecule that lie in the range of 4.1 to 7.2 amu for 410 to 720°K neutrons, respectively.