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National labs drive nuclear innovations and uprates for the U.S. fleet
As the United States faces surging electricity demand driven by artificial intelligence, data centers, and a push to bring manufacturing back home, Idaho National Laboratory is leading an effort to modernize and expand the nation’s nuclear power capabilities by revamping the Department of Energy’s Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) Program.
Anil K. Prinja, Patrick F. O’Rourke
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 2 | February 2023 | Pages 189-211
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2087830
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The stochastic theory of neutron transport is extended to describe the cumulative distribution of fission numbers and deposited fission energy in a subvolume of a multiplying assembly. Solutions for the probability distributions are obtained using analytical approximations and Monte Carlo simulation in lumped geometry and in symmetric homogeneous and heterogeneous spheres. The results show the development of a power-law tail in the steady-state fission number and deposited energy distributions when the medium is critical, independent of the fission neutron multiplicity distribution and domain heterogeneity. In contrast, the asymptotic decay is faster than exponential in subcritical media due to rapid chain extinction and in supercritical media due to the increasing probability of chain divergence. A formal asymptotic analysis of the problem in lumped geometry with an arbitrary fission neutron multiplicity confirms the existence of power-law tails at critical.