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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The 2025 edition is a reinvigoration of the withdrawn ANS-54.8-1988 of the same title.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.
Gerald Houghton
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 12 | Number 3 | March 1962 | Pages 390-397
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE62-A28089
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The coupled nonlinear differential equations representing the void fraction and the liquid temperature in a heated channel have been solved by neglecting the slip velocity and assuming that there is no nucleation in the bulk liquid. In agreement with the experimental data for uniformly heated channels, the general solution of the void fraction equations predicts a sigmoidal vapor fraction profile. Theoretical temperature profiles show that, even in the high void fraction region, thermal equilibrium is not attained in the channel, indicating that the Martinelli-Nelson approach does not apply and that the void profiles at high vapor fractions are still a complicated function of the liquid velocity, heat flux, vapor production, and channel spacing.