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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.
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2027 ANS Winter Conference and Expo
October 31–November 4, 2027
Washington, DC|The Westin Washington, DC Downtown
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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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Drones fly in to inspect waste tanks at Savannah River Site
The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management will soon, for the first time, begin using drones to internally inspect radioactive liquid waste tanks at the department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Inspections were previously done using magnetic wall-crawling robots.
Alain Hébert, Hadrien Leroyer
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 176 | Number 3 | March 2014 | Pages 312-324
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE13-26
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We investigate the OPTEX reflector model for obtaining few-group reflector parameters consistent with a reference power distribution in the core. The reference power distribution is obtained using a 142 872-region calculation defined over a two-dimensional eighth-of-core pressurized water reactor (PWR) and performed with the method of characteristics. The OPTEX method is based on generalized perturbation theory and uses an optimization algorithm known as parametric linear complementarity pivoting. The proposed model leads to few-group diffusion coefficients or P1-weighted macroscopic total cross sections that can be used to represent the reflector in full-core calculations. These few-group parameters can be spatially heterogeneous in order to correctly represent steel baffles and thermal shields present in modern PWRs. The optimal reflector parameters are compared with those obtained with a flux-volume weighting of the reflector cross sections recovered from the reference calculation. Important improvements in full-core power distribution are observed when the optimal parameters are used.