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Division Spotlight
Fusion Energy
This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
Daniel Rozon, Wei Shen
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 138 | Number 1 | May 2001 | Pages 1-25
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE138-1-25
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
For both pressurized water reactor (PWR) and Canada deuterium uranium (CANDU) tandem analysis, the Direct Use of spent PWR fuel In CANDU reactor (DUPIC) fuel cycle in a CANDU 6 reactor is studied using the DRAGON/DONJON chain of codes with the ENDF/B-V and ENDF/B-VI libraries. The reference feed material is a 17 × 17 French standard 900-MW(electric) PWR fuel. The PWR spent-fuel composition is obtained from two-dimensional DRAGON assembly transport and depletion calculations. After a number of years of cooling, this defines the initial fuel nuclide field in the CANDU unit cell calculations in DRAGON, where it is further depleted with the same neutron group structure. The resulting macroscopic cross sections are condensed and tabulated to be used in a full-core model of a CANDU 6 reactor to find an optimized channel fueling rate distribution on a time-average basis. Assuming equilibrium refueling conditions and a particular refueling sequence, instantaneous full-core diffusion calculations are finally performed with the DONJON code, from which both the channel power peaking factors and local parameter effects are estimated. A generic study of the DUPIC fuel cycle is carried out using the linear reactivity model for initial enrichments ranging from 3.2 to 4.5 wt% in a PWR. Because of the uneven power histories of the spent PWR assemblies, the spent PWR fuel composition is expected to differ from one assembly to the next. Uneven mixing of the powder during DUPIC fuel fabrication may lead to uncertainties in the composition of the fuel bundle and larger peaking factors in CANDU. A mixing method for reducing composition uncertainties is discussed.
