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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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February 2024
Latest News
Why should safeguards by design be a global effort?
Jeremy Whitlock
I can’t think of a more exciting time to be working in nuclear, with the diversity of advanced reactor development and increasing global support for nuclear in sustainable energy planning. But we can’t lose sight of the need to plan for efficient international safeguards at the same time.
Global nuclear deployment has been underpinned since 1970 by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), making it a key customer requirement for governments to demonstrate unequivocally that the technology is not being misused for weapons development.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has helped verify this commitment for more than 50 years, but it has never safeguarded many of the advanced reactors (and related fuel cycle processes) being developed today.
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.