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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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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A new ANSI/ANS standard for liquid metal fire protection published
ANSI/ANS-54.8-2025, Liquid Metal Fire Protection in LMR Plants, received approval from the American National Standards Institute on September 2 and is now available for purchase.
The 2025 edition is a reinvigoration of the withdrawn ANS-54.8-1988 of the same title. The Advanced Reactor Codes and Standards Collaborative (ARCSC) identified the need for a current version of the standard via an industry survey.
Typical liquid metal reactor designs use liquid sodium as the coolant for both the primary and intermediate heat-transport systems. In addition, liquid sodium and NaK (a mixture of sodium and potassium that is liquid at room temperature) are often used in auxiliary heat-removal systems. Since these liquid metals can react readily with oxygen, water, and other compounds, special precautions must be taken in the design, construction, testing, and maintenance of the sodium/NaK systems to ensure that the potential for leakage is very small.
J. C. Hopkins, B. C. Diven
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 12 | Number 2 | February 1962 | Pages 169-177
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE62-A26055
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The ratio of neutron capture to fission cross sections, α, has been measured for U233, U235, and Pu239 at 9 incident neutron energies from 30 kev to 1000 kev. A pulsed and collimated neutron beam is passed through a target placed at the center of a large, cadmium-loaded, liquid scintillator. Capture and fission events are detected by means of their prompt gamma rays; elastic and inelastic scattering events are discarded because of their smaller pulse height. Fission is identified by the delayed pulses produced by capture in the scintillator of the fission neutrons. Corrections are applied for the fission events not followed by delayed neutron pulses and for the effect of background counts. This procedure yields values of 1 + α to an accuracy of 1 or 2%.