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Division Spotlight
Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
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.
Tong Kyu Park, Han Gyu Joo, Chang Hyo Kim, Hyun Chul Lee
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 162 | Number 2 | June 2009 | Pages 134-147
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE162-134
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The problem of multiobjective fuel loading pattern (LP) optimization employing high-fidelity three-dimensional (3-D) models is resolved by introducing the concepts of discontinuous penalty function, dominance, and two-dimensional (2-D)-based screening into the simulated annealing (SA) algorithm. Each constraint and objective imposed on a reload LP design is transformed into a discontinuous penalty function that involves a jump to a quadratic variation at the point of the limiting value of the corresponding core characteristics parameter. It is shown that with this discontinuous form the sensitivity of the penalty coefficients is quite weak compared to the stochastic effect of SA. The feasible LPs found during SA update the set of candidate LPs through a dominance check that is done by examining multiple objectives altogether. The 2-D-based screening technique uses a precalculated database of the 2-D solution errors and is shown to be very effective in saving the SA computation time by avoiding 3-D evaluations for the unfavorable LPs that are frequently encountered in SA. Realistic applications of the proposed method to a pressurized water reactor reload LP optimization with the dual objectives of maximizing the cycle length and minimizing the radial peaking factor demonstrate that the method works quite well in practice.