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Human Factors, Instrumentation & Controls
Improving task performance, system reliability, system and personnel safety, efficiency, and effectiveness are the division's main objectives. Its major areas of interest include task design, procedures, training, instrument and control layout and placement, stress control, anthropometrics, psychological input, and motivation.
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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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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.
U. B. Phathanapirom, E. A. Schneider
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 182 | Number 4 | April 2016 | Pages 502-522
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE15-25
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper introduces a new methodology for explicitly incorporating uncertainties in key parameters into decision making regarding the transition between various nuclear fuel cycles. These key uncertainties—in demand growth rates, technology availability, and technology costs, among others—are unlikely to be resolved for several decades and invalidate the concept of planning for a unique optimal transition strategy. Past time-dependent analyses of the nuclear fuel cycle have confronted uncertainties by using a scenario-based approach where key variables are parametrically varied, which gives rise to inflexible courses of action associated with optima for each scenario. Instead, this work selects hedging strategies through a decision making under uncertainty framework. These strategies are found by applying a choice criterion to select courses of action that mitigate regrets. These regrets are calculated by evaluating the performance of all possible transition strategies for every feasible outcome of the uncertain parameter(s). The methodology is applied to a case study involving transition from the current once-through light water reactor fuel cycle to one relying on continuous recycle in fast reactors, and the effect of choice criterion is explored. Hedging strategies are found that preserve significant flexibility to allow alteration of the fuel cycle strategy once these uncertainties are resolved. This work may provide guidance for agent-based, behavioral modeling in fuel cycle simulators as well as decision making in real-world applications.