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Division Spotlight
Nuclear Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
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.
Doddy Yozef Febrian Kastanya, Paul J. Turinsky
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 150 | Number 1 | May 2005 | Pages 56-71
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE05-A2501
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A Newton-Krylov iterative solver has been developed to reduce the CPU execution time of boiling water reactor (BWR) core simulators implemented in the core simulator part of the Fuel Optimization for Reloads Multiple Objectives by Simulated Annealing for BWR (FORMOSA-B) code, which is an in-core fuel management optimization code for BWRs. This new solver utilizes Newton's method to explicitly treat strong nonlinearities in the problem, replacing the traditionally used nested iterative approach. Newton's method provides the solver with a higher-than-linear convergence rate, assuming that good initial estimates of the unknowns are provided. Within each Newton iteration, an appropriately preconditioned Krylov solver is utilized for solving the linearized system of equations. Taking advantage of the higher convergence rate provided by Newton's method and utilizing an efficient preconditioned Krylov solver, we have developed a Newton-Krylov solver to evaluate the three-dimensional, two-group neutron diffusion equations coupled with a two-phase flow model within a BWR core simulator. Numerical tests on the new solver have shown that speedups ranging from 1.6 to 2.1, with reference to the traditional approach of employing nested iterations to treat the nonlinear feedbacks, can be achieved. However, if a preconditioned Krylov solver is employed to complete the inner iterations of the traditional approach, negligible CPU time differences are noted between the Newton-Krylov and traditional (Krylov) approaches.