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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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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.
Yonghee Kim, Won Seok Park, Tae Yung Song, Chang Kue Park
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 143 | Number 2 | February 2003 | Pages 141-157
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE03-A2325
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The height-to-diameter (H/D) ratio of a lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE)-cooled accelerator-driven system (ADS) has been evaluated in terms of the neutron multiplication, the coolant void worth, and the coolant velocity. For a model ADS, an optimization of the H/D ratio is performed with a Monte Carlo code both for the effective multiplication factor keff and for the multiplication of the external neutrons. In the optimization, ten cases of H/D values have been analyzed for a homogeneous fuel blanket. Also, the dependency of the optimal H/D ratio on the target/buffer is addressed. The Monte Carlo simulations show that the optimal H/D configuration of the ADS core is quite different for the two important measures, and a high H/D ratio can provide a significantly higher source multiplication than the traditional pancake core. Furthermore, various core analyses including depletion calculations are conducted for three selected heterogeneous cores with different H/D ratios, which are a small H/D value (pancake type), a medium H/D value, and a high H/D value, respectively. Void reactivity coefficients of the LBE coolant are evaluated and compared for the three designs to quantify the effects of the H/D ratio. Additionally, a thermal-hydraulic analysis has been performed to derive a maximum allowable core height subject to the LBE velocity limit due to its corrosion and erosion characteristics. It is shown that the practically optimal H/D ratio for source multiplication is tightly constrained by the maximum allowable LBE velocity, depending on the core design parameters.
