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Division Spotlight
Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
H. J. Uitslag-Doolaard, K. Zwijsen, F. Roelofs, M. M. Stempniewicz
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 10 | October 2023 | Pages 2543-2560
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2148809
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Increasing the computational power enables the nuclear community to combine existing knowledge on the variety of different physical phenomena that take place in reactors and to develop tools that can simulate these combined, interacting phenomena simultaneously. This includes phenomena related to structural mechanics, fluid dynamics, and reactor physics among others. Coupling different codes developed specifically for the analysis of separate phenomenon is currently a topic high on the research and development agenda of the international community.
Based on the experience of successfully computing the dissymmetric benchmark in the Phénix reactor by coupling the system thermal-hydraulic (STH) code SPECTRA to the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code CFX in the H2020 SESAME project, the Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group (NRG) is currently developing the code-coupling tool myMUSCLE: MultiphYsics MUltiscale Simulation CoupLing Environment. MyMUSCLE is an independent, external, Fortran-based code that arranges the efficient and robust coupling of different codes. It aims at being flexible with respect to the codes being coupled, i.e., commercial and open-source codes, while having a single coupling tool that enhances quality assurance. It is currently set up to couple SPECTRA as a STH code to CFX, Fluent, STAR-CCM+, or OpenFOAM as a CFD code. This paper presents the proof of principle and first verification of the myMUSCLE tool under development by applying it to multiscale thermal-hydraulic applications.
First, a flow through a pipe is modeled as proof of principle for explicit coupling at a single coupling interface. Second, in preparation for modeling liquid-metal-cooled fast reactors, a piping system with a pool with natural convection is modeled. The results of the multiscale calculations show good agreement among the different coupled CFD codes. Finally, the preparations for simulating the TALL-3D experiment, used for generating data for validation of simulation tools for liquid-metal pools, are presented.
