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
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Oct 2025
Jul 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
November 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Leading the charge: INL’s role in advancing HALEU production
Idaho National Laboratory is playing a key role in helping the U.S. Department of Energy meet near-term needs by recovering HALEU from federal inventories, providing critical support to help lay the foundation for a future commercial HALEU supply chain. INL also supports coordination of broader DOE efforts, from material recovery at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to commercial enrichment initiatives.
Hangbok Choi
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 137 | Number 1 | January 2001 | Pages 38-51
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE01-A2174
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The fuel composition heterogeneity effect on reactor performance parameters was assessed by refueling simulations for three DUPIC fuel options of fuel composition heterogeneity control: fissile content adjustment, reactivity control by slightly enriched and depleted uranium, and reactivity control by natural uranium. For each DUPIC fuel option, the simulations were performed using 30 heterogeneous fuel types, which were determined by the agglomerative hierarchical clustering method. The heterogeneity effect was considered during the refueling simulation by randomly selecting fuel types for the refueling operation. The refueling simulations of the heterogeneous core have shown that the key performance parameters, such as the maximum channel power (MCP), maximum bundle power (MBP), and channel power peaking factor (CPPF), are close to those of the core that has a single fuel type. For the three DUPIC fuel options, the uncertainties of MCP, MBP, and CPPF due to the fuel composition heterogeneity are <0.6, 1.5, and 0.8%, respectively. This study has shown that the three DUPIC fuel options reduce the composition heterogeneity effectively, and the zone power control system has a sufficient margin to adjust the perturbations caused by fuel composition heterogeneity.