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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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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ANS joins others in seeking to discuss SNF/HLW impasse
The American Nuclear Society joined seven other organizations to send a letter to Energy Secretary Christopher Wright on July 8, asking to meet with him to discuss “the restoration of a highly functioning program to meet DOE’s legal responsibility to manage and dispose of the nation’s commercial and legacy defense spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW).”
Jinho Song, Changwook Huh, Namduk Suh
Nuclear Technology | Volume 178 | Number 3 | June 2012 | Pages 258-266
Technical Paper | Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-A13592
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Weaknesses of the current Severe Accident Management Guideline (SAMG) in handling the cooling of a molten core are discussed, and three improvements for the SAMG are presented. It is suggested that instrumentation to detect either a breach of the reactor vessel or a discharge of corium into the reactor cavity is essential to effectively perform the SAMG. A detailed analysis for a specific plant is necessary to make a decision as to whether preflooding or postflooding should be initiated for effective molten core cooling. Also, an optimal choice of depressurization capacity not only would significantly delay failure of the reactor vessel but also would increase the coolability margin of the molten corium in a reactor cavity. Analyses using the MELCOR computer code were performed for the Ulchin Units 1 and 2 and Kori Unit 1 nuclear power plants to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed improvements in cooling of the molten core in the reactor cavity, where in-vessel retention of molten corium by preflooding is not feasible.