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Division Spotlight
Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
Meeting Spotlight
Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
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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Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2024
Nuclear Technology
August 2024
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Taking shape: Fusion energy ecosystems built with public-private partnerships
It’s possible to describe fusion in simple terms: heat and squeeze small atoms to get abundant clean energy. But there’s nothing simple about getting fusion ready for the grid.
Private developers, national lab and university researchers, suppliers, and end users working toward that goal are developing a range of complex technologies to reach fusion temperatures and pressures, confounded by science and technology gaps linked to plasma behavior; materials, diagnostics, and electronics for extreme environments; fuel cycle sustainability; and economics.
Yongping Wang, Yunzhao Li, Tengfei Zhang, E. E. Lewis, M. A. Smith, W. S. Yang, Hongchun Wu
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 193 | Number 6 | June 2019 | Pages 652-662
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2018.1542883
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Generalized Partitioned Matrix (GPM) acceleration method for the Variational Nodal Method (VNM) with diffusion approximation is presented. In the GPM method, the vectors of expansion coefficients of the scalar flux, source, and partial currents are divided into low-order and high-order terms. For each outer iteration, the low-order terms of the flux, fission source, and partial currents are first solved with fixed higher-order terms from the preceding outer iteration, and then a full matrix sweep through the energy groups is performed to update the full set of expansion coefficients. The GPM method increases the CPU time per outer iteration but reduces the overall computational time significantly by reducing the number of outer iterations required for convergence. The GPM acceleration method has been implemented in the NODAL code, and its performance was compared with that of the traditional Partitioned Matrix (PM) acceleration scheme for four problems: two- and three-dimensional C5G7 problems, a NuScale modular core problem, and a large pressurized water reactor problem. The numerical results show that the PM acceleration consistently reduces the computational time by a factor of 2.0 and the GPM acceleration yields two to three times higher speedup than with PM acceleration by reducing the number of outer iterations. The GPM speedups over the unaccelerated VNM range between 4.3 and 6.3. Moreover, the speedup ratio achieved with the GPM acceleration increases with an increasing dominance ratio of the problem since the required number of outer iterations increases with an increasing dominance ratio.