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Division Spotlight
Nuclear Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
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
Dragonfly, a Pu-fueled drone heading to Titan, gets key NASA approval
Curiosity landed on Mars sporting a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) in 2012, and a second NASA rover, Perseverance, landed in 2021. Both are still rolling across the red planet in the name of science. Another exploratory craft with a similar plutonium-238–fueled RTG but a very different mission—to fly between multiple test sites on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon—recently got one step closer to deployment.
On April 25, NASA and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) announced that the Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s icy moon passed its critical design review. “Passing this mission milestone means that Dragonfly’s mission design, fabrication, integration, and test plans are all approved, and the mission can now turn its attention to the construction of the spacecraft itself,” according to NASA.
César Queral, Antonio Expósito, Alberto Concejal, Pablo Niesutta
Nuclear Technology | Volume 171 | Number 1 | July 2010 | Pages 53-73
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT10-A10772
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An analysis of the PKL midloop tests E3.1 and F2.2 run 2 was performed with the TRACE (TRAC/RELAP Advanced Computational Engine) and RELAP5/MOD3.3 codes. Both tests allow study of the phenomenology and different accident management actions after a loss of the residual heat removal system at midloop conditions with the primary side closed. A comparison of the results obtained with both codes and the experimental data shows that in general, the main phenomena are well reproduced. The good results obtained allow one to confirm that the modelization methodology is adequate for this kind of transient. However, there are still a few phenomena that are not well predicted, like pressurizer water level behavior.
