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A closer look at the initial NLIC selections—Part 2
In January, the Department of Energy announced its new Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus (NLIC) program, inviting states via a request for information to express their interest in hosting a facility supporting work from the front to the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle.
By April, 26 states had expressed interest in hosting such a facility. At the end of July, the DOE signed memorandums of understanding with five states—Idaho, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah—to more closely explore the possibilities of state-federal partnerships. These MOUs are not firm commitments from either the federal or state governments. Time will tell which—if any—of the five states develop projects through the program. In the meantime, today, we are taking a close look at what Utah, Idaho, Tennessee can offer in terms of a preexisting nuclear sector that could support new fuel cycle developments.
Alex Pegarkov, Shawn Somers-Neal, Edgar Matida, Vinh Tang, Tarik Kaya
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 196 | Number 10 | October 2022 | Pages 1161-1171
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2067738
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
During a severe power reactor accident, the plant core can melt. The resulting mixture of molten nuclear fuel and other in-core materials is known as corium. For a Canada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) reactor, the corium is expected to settle at the bottom of the calandria vessel, but there is a potential for some melt to flow through connecting piping and other penetrations. The flow of corium through these structures can be contained if melt solidification and thus plugging occur. A numerical model was created to simulate the flow of molten metal through an empty vertical pipe. This model was benchmarked to a previous analytical model and validated against experimental results with gallium metal (which is a metal with low melting temperature) as an alternative for corium. The numerical model predicted the penetration length of gallium with an average percent error of 10.3% when compared to the experimental penetration length results of gallium. The model was also updated to predict the corium penetration length in cooling pipes of the CANDU reactor during a severe accident.