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Division Spotlight
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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
Can hydrogen be the transportation fuel in an otherwise nuclear economy?
Let’s face it: The global economy should be powered primarily by nuclear power. And it probably will by the end of this century, with a still-significant assist from renewables and hydro. Once nuclear systems are dominant, the costs come down to where gas is now; and when carbon emissions are reduced to a small portion of their present state, it will become obvious that most other sources are only good in niche settings. I mean, why use small modular reactors to load-follow when they can just produce that power instead of buffering it?
Jiaxuan Tang, Daogang Lu, Jiangtao Liang, Xiangfeng Ma, Yizhe Liu, Shangshang Ye, Zihan Xia, Yuhao Zhang
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 195 | Number 5 | May 2021 | Pages 478-495
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2020.1834314
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The complex structure of a pool-type sodium-cooled fast reactor may lead to uncertainty and asymmetry of flow and temperature field distributions under a pump stuck accident. This phenomenon has obvious three-dimensional (3-D) thermal-hydraulic characteristics and cannot be analyzed by one-dimensional or two-dimensional models. Previous research has been limited and lacking of 3-D numerical data. Therefore, the commercial computational fluid dynamics software FLUENT is used to simulate a full-scale 3-D integrated model of the China Experimental Fast Reactor (CEFR) in order to obtain 3-D thermal-hydraulic characteristics of key structures and components in the pool-type sodium-cooled fast reactor under a pump stuck accident in the primary loop. The results show that a special asymmetrical backflow phenomenon may occur in the pressure tube and the intermediate heat exchangers (IHXs) of the failure loop under the accident, further leading to complicated flow and thermal characteristics in both the hot and the cold pools. There is obvious thermal stratification and asymmetric temperature distribution, within a temperature difference of more than 90°C between the different loops’ IHX outlet. The temperature difference between the upper and lower areas of the baffles is 20°C to 105°C. This research provides a detailed reference for engineering design and operation.