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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Powering the future: How the DOE is fueling nuclear fuel cycle research and development
As global interest in nuclear energy surges, the United States must remain at the forefront of research and development to ensure national energy security, advance nuclear technologies, and promote international cooperation on safety and nonproliferation. A crucial step in achieving this is analyzing how funding and resources are allocated to better understand how to direct future research and development. The Department of Energy has spearheaded this effort by funding hundreds of research projects across the country through the Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP). This initiative has empowered dozens of universities to collaborate toward a nuclear-friendly future.
Uncheol Shin, Warren F. Miller, Jr.
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 128 | Number 1 | January 1998 | Pages 27-46
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE98-A1943
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Using an asymptotic expansion, we found that the modified time-dependent simplified P2 (SP2) equations are robust, high-order, asymptotic approximations to the time-dependent transport equation in a physical regime in which the conventional time-dependent diffusion equation is the leading-order approximation. Using diffusion limit analysis, we also asymptotically compared three competitive time-dependent equations (the telegrapher's equation, the time-dependent SP2 equations, and the time-dependent simplified even-parity equation). As a result, we found that the time-dependent SP2 equations contain higher-order asymptotic approximations to the time-dependent transport equation than the other competitive equations. The numerical results confirm that, in the vast majority of cases, the time-dependent SP2 solutions are significantly more accurate than the time-dependent diffusion and the telegrapher's solutions. We have also shown that the time-dependent SP2 equations have excellent characteristics such as rotational invariance (which means no ray effect), good diffusion limit behavior, guaranteed positivity in diffusive regimes, and significant accuracy, even in deep-penetration problems. Through computer-running-time tests, we have shown that the time-dependent SP2 equations can be solved with significantly less computational effort than the conventionally used, time-dependent SN equations (for N > 2) and almost as fast as the time-dependent diffusion equation. From all these results, we conclude that the time-dependent SP2 equations should be considered as an important competitor for an improved approximate transport equation solver. Such computationally efficient time-dependent transport models are especially important for problems requiring enhanced computational efficiency, such as neutronics/fluid-dynamics coupled problems that arise in the analyses of hypothetical nuclear reactor accidents.
