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Division Spotlight
Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
Meeting Spotlight
Materials in Nuclear Energy Systems (MiNES 2023)
December 10–14, 2023
New Orleans, LA|New Orleans Marriott
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
Westinghouse, OPG to explore reactor deployment opportunities
Westinghouse Electric Company and Ontario Power Generation have signed a memorandum of understanding establishing a framework to identify potential areas of cooperation for the deployment of nuclear technologies in Canada, the companies jointly announced this morning. (While based in Cranberry Township, Pa., Westinghouse is owned by Canadian firms Brookfield Asset Management and Cameco.)
Petter Helgesson, Dimitri Rochman, Henrik Sjöstrand, Erwin Alhassan, Arjan Koning
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 177 | Number 3 | July 2014 | Pages 321-336
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE13-48
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Precise assessment of propagated nuclear data uncertainties in integral reactor quantities is necessary for the development of new reactors as well as for modified use, e.g., when replacing UO2 fuel by mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel in conventional thermal reactors. This paper compares UO2 fuel to two types of MOX fuel with respect to propagated nuclear data uncertainty, primarily in keff, by applying the Fast Total Monte Carlo method (Fast TMC) to a typical pressurized water reactor pin cell model in Serpent, including burnup. An extensive amount of nuclear data is taken into account, including transport and activation data for 105 nuclides, fission yields for 13 actinides, and thermal scattering data for H in H2O. There is indeed a significant difference in propagated nuclear data uncertainty in keff; at zero burnup, the uncertainty is 0.6% for UO2 and ∼ 1% for the MOX fuels. The difference decreases with burnup. Uncertainties in fissile fuel nuclides and thermal scattering are the most important for the difference, and the reasons for this are understood and explained. This work thus suggests that there can be an important difference between UO2 and MOX for the determination of uncertainty margins. However, it is difficult to estimate the effects of the simplified model; uncertainties should be propagated in more complicated models of any considered system. Fast TMC, however, allows for this without adding much computational time.