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NRC unveils Part 53 final rule
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has finalized its new regulatory framework for advanced reactors that officials believe will accelerate, simplify, and reduce burdens in the new reactor licensing process.
The final rule arrives more than a year ahead of an end-of-2027 deadline set in the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA), the 2019 law that formally directed the NRC to develop a new, technology-inclusive regulatory approach. The resulting rule—10 CFR Part 53, “Risk-Informed, Technology-Inclusive Regulatory Framework for Advanced Reactors”—is commonly referred to as Part 53.
Hao Luo, Kaiwen Li, Nan An, Shanfang Huang, Kan Wang
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 199 | Number 1 | April 2025 | Pages S966-S986
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2024.2316955
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Accurate estimation of energy deposition is important in core physics and severe accident analyses for design optimizations. In this study, a new energy deposition treatment is implemented in the Reactor Monte Carlo (RMC) code, offering multiple modes with varying levels of fidelity and computational requirements. The most precise mode is utilized in coupling simulations between RMC and the subchannel thermal-hydraulic analysis code SUBCHAN, incorporating an explicit moderator heating fraction in the coupling interface. The new treatment is verified against references from MCNP, Serpent, and OpenMC for three light water reactor (LWR) assembly cases, and great agreement is achieved. Energy deposition in different materials and components is emphasized in Kilowatt Reactor Using Stirling TechnologY (KRUSTY) modeling, and the results obtained using different modes are compared. The RMC-SUBCHAN coupling calculations for the three LWR assembly cases, employing the most accurate model, reveal a maximum increase of 94.6 K in the control rod centerline temperature, with a normalized energy deposition of 35.9% in the control rod regions. In the assembly case with gadolinium (Gd) burnable poison, a temperature increase of 7.3 K is observed in the Gd rod centerline, while the coolant outlet temperature decreases by 1.6 K due to the reduced explicit moderator heating fraction of 2.1%, compared to the constant 2.6% in the previous coupling scheme.