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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
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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Glass strategy: Hanford’s enhanced waste glass program
The mission of the Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection (ORP) is to complete the safe cleanup of waste resulting from decades of nuclear weapons development. One of the most technologically challenging responsibilities is the safe disposition of approximately 56 million gallons of radioactive waste historically stored in 177 tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
ORP has a clear incentive to reduce the overall mission duration and cost. One pathway is to develop and deploy innovative technical solutions that can advance baseline flow sheets toward higher efficiency operations while reducing identified risks without compromising safety. Vitrification is the baseline process that will convert both high-level and low-level radioactive waste at Hanford into a stable glass waste form for long-term storage and disposal.
Although vitrification is a mature technology, there are key areas where technology can further reduce operational risks, advance baseline processes to maximize waste throughput, and provide the underpinning to enhance operational flexibility; all steps in reducing mission duration and cost.
Peter Jansson, Martin Bengtsson, Ulrika Bäckström, Francisco Álvarez-Velarde, Dušan Čalič, Stefano Caruso, Ron Dagan, Luca Fiorito, Lydie Giot, Kevin Govers, Augusto Hernandez Solis, Volker Hannstein, Germina Ilas, Marjan Kromar, Jaakko Leppänen, Marita Mosconi, Pedro Ortego, Rita Plukienė, Arturas Plukis, Anssu Ranta-Aho, Dimitri Rochman, Linus Ros, Shunsuke Sato, Peter Schillebeeckx, Ahmed Shama, Teodosi Simeonov, Alexey Stankovskiy, Holly Trellue, Stefano Vaccaro, Vanessa Vallet, Marc Verwerft, Gašper Žerovnik, Anders Sjöland
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 196 | Number 9 | September 2022 | Pages 1125-1145
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2053489
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The decay heat rate of five spent nuclear fuel assemblies of the pressurized water reactor type were measured by calorimetry at the interim storage for spent nuclear fuel in Sweden. Calculations of the decay heat rate of the five assemblies were performed by 20 organizations using different codes and nuclear data libraries resulting in 31 results for each assembly, spanning most of the current state-of-the-art practice. The calculations were based on a selected subset of information, such as reactor operating history and fuel assembly properties. The relative difference between the measured and average calculated decay heat rate ranged from 0.6% to 3.3% for the five assemblies. The standard deviation of these relative differences ranged from 1.9% to 2.4%.