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Division Spotlight
Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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!
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Latest News
Securing the advanced reactor fleet
Physical protection accounts for a significant portion of a nuclear power plant’s operational costs. As the U.S. moves toward smaller and safer advanced reactors, similar protection strategies could prove cost prohibitive. For tomorrow’s small modular reactors and microreactors, security costs must remain appropriate to the size of the reactor for economical operation.
Jie Zheng, Tong Guo, G. Ivan Maldonado
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 137 | Number 2 | February 2001 | Pages 156-172
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE01-A2182
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A linear superposition model (LSM) for the speedy and accurate estimation of lattice-physics parameters during within-bundle "pin-by-pin" loading optimization calculations of light water reactor nuclear fuel assemblies has been developed. The LSM has been implemented into the FORMOSA-L code, and typical results show that the run-time requirements can be reduced by at least an order of magnitude relative to performing direct lattice-physics evaluations with the CPM-2 or CASMO-3 code. Moreover, the speedups noted include all overhead expenses associated with the direct lattice-physics calculations required to construct the LSM sensitivity libraries. Additionally, accuracy improvements to the LSM are achieved by inclusion of higher-order cross terms and via quadratic interpolation when perturbing continuous variables. Also, it is shown that the errors generated by this first-order accurate technique can be kept well under control by treating material and spatial shuffles separately during optimizations. The results obtained indicate that the LSM can effectively substitute for direct lattice-physics evaluations throughout the entire optimization process without noticeable loss of fidelity. Finally, both synchronous and asynchronous implementations of parallel computing via the remote-procedure-call approach have been studied to further speed up the creation of LSM sensitivity libraries within FORMOSA-L.