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NRC proposed rule for licensing reactors authorized by DOE, DOD
Nuclear reactor designs approved by the Department of Energy or Department of Defense could get streamlined pathways through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s commercial licensing process should applicants wish to push the technology into the civilian sector.
A proposed rule introduced April 2 by the NRC would “improve NRC licensing review efficiency, where applicable, by explicitly establishing by regulation an additional means for reactor applicants to demonstrate the safety functions of their reactor designs, and thus, would contribute to the safe and secure use and deployment of civilian nuclear energy technologies.”
Taira Hazama, Akihiro Kitano, Y. Kishimoto
Nuclear Technology | Volume 179 | Number 2 | August 2012 | Pages 250-265
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-A14097
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Japanese prototype fast breeder reactor Monju restarted its system startup test in May 2010 after a 14-year interruption. In the first stage of the test, reactor physics parameters have been measured at a zero power level.The present paper describes the evaluation of the criticality data. The best-estimate value and its uncertainty are evaluated as accurately as possible, following the guidelines recommended by the International Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation Project.The restart core contains 1.5 wt% of 241Am, which is three times more than the previous test. To extract the influence of the 241Am accumulation on calculation accuracy, criticality data obtained in the previous test are evaluated at the same level of detail.The calculation accuracy is investigated with four major nuclear data libraries. It is confirmed that the accuracy is within 0.3% k/k, a 2 value of experimental uncertainty, with JENDL-3.3, JENDL-4.0, and ENDF/B-VII.0. The reactivity change due to the 241Pu decay can be simulated within an accuracy of 1% with JENDL-4.0 and JEFF-3.1.