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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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
House E&C members question the DOE
As work progresses on the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Reactor Pilot Program, which will progress through DOE authorization rather than Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing, three members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce have sent a critical letter to Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
The letter demands “information about the DOE and its employees’ dealings with the NRC and its staff” and expresses concern that DOE staff has “broken the firewall” between the departments.
Yuqi Liu, Shuai Che, Adam Burak, Daniel L. Barth, Nicolas Zweibaum, Minghui Chen
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 5 | May 2023 | Pages 907-919
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2103343
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Fluoride salt-cooled, High-temperature Reactors (FHRs), featuring particle fuel, graphite moderator, and molten fluoride salt coolant, are used for electricity generation and process heat applications. The primary loop of an FHR is a closed loop that operates slightly above the atmospheric pressure with the fluoride salt temperature over 600°C. Reliable high-temperature molten salt pumps are critical to the successful deployment of FHRs. To stabilize rotating shafts and reduce the associated friction coefficients, well-designed bearings are required for molten salt pumps. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the detailed hydrodynamic performance of bearings under high-temperature molten salt conditions. In this study, a computational fluid dynamics software package, i.e., STAR-CCM+, was used to predict the performance of fluoride salt–lubricated bearings. The numerical models were verified and validated respectively based on an analytical solution derived from the Reynolds equation and experimental data published in the literature. Good agreement was observed between the simulation results and the analytical solution and experimental data with a maximum relative discrepancy of less than 5%. The validated numerical model was then employed to predict the pressure distributions, applied static loads, and power losses of high-temperature fluoride salt–lubricated bearings with various Sommerfeld numbers. In addition, a parametric analysis was performed to investigate the influence of the axial and helical grooves of bearings on applied static load and power loss. It is found that under the same salt lubrication conditions, the bearings with helical grooves and axial grooves respectively yield 20% off and 14% off power loss compared with the bearing without grooves.