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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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Dry Ice Blasting: A Game-Changer for Safe Cleaning and Decontamination in Nuclear Power Plants
The nuclear energy industry is critical not only for meeting the world’s growing demand for electricity but also for advancing global decarbonization goals. As the sector evolves—through life extensions of existing plants, decommissioning, innovations like small modular reactors (SMRs) and microreactors, and new facility construction—the need for safe, efficient, and environmentally responsible maintenance and decommissioning continues to grow. Whether a plant is coming online, operating beyond its original design life, or entering decommissioning, cleanliness and operational integrity remain non-negotiable. That’s where dry ice blasting stands out—a powerful, safe cleaning method ideally suited for the high-stakes demands of nuclear environments.
Anjun Jiao, David Ricks, Thomas Remick, Brian J. Hansen
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 11 | November 2023 | Pages 2830-2839
Regular Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2023.2171274
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new methodology using a free turbulent flow model to evaluate control room habitability is developed, and the theoretical model can be applied to the postulated event of rupture or line break of the on-site hazardous gas pressurized tank/system. Based on the conservation of mass law and momentum equations, correlations of the control room ventilation hazardous gas intake concentration and the control room buildup toxic concentration were established and can be used to evaluate control room habitability. Compared with current methodology widely used in the industry (introduced by NUREG-0570), the developed theoretical analysis methodology is applicable to events occurring without any constraint on the distance between the site of toxic gas release and the inlet of the control room fresh air intake or the control room. With a given amount of hazardous gas release source, the analysis results indicate that maximum control room toxic gas concentration will depend on the mass release rate or its break size, the density of the hazardous gas, and the distance between the site of the toxic release and the control room fresh air intake. The limiting case of the control room habitability analysis will occur at the break size resulting in the highest control room toxic gas concentration. The control room toxic gas transient concentration at the limiting break size can be predicted by the model and compared with its acceptance criteria of short-term exposure limit and time-weighted average to evaluate the control room habitability whether protection actions of the control room operators are required to prevent incapacitation or death due to the postulated events of toxic gas release.