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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
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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Glass strategy: Hanford’s enhanced waste glass program
The mission of the Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection (ORP) is to complete the safe cleanup of waste resulting from decades of nuclear weapons development. One of the most technologically challenging responsibilities is the safe disposition of approximately 56 million gallons of radioactive waste historically stored in 177 tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
ORP has a clear incentive to reduce the overall mission duration and cost. One pathway is to develop and deploy innovative technical solutions that can advance baseline flow sheets toward higher efficiency operations while reducing identified risks without compromising safety. Vitrification is the baseline process that will convert both high-level and low-level radioactive waste at Hanford into a stable glass waste form for long-term storage and disposal.
Although vitrification is a mature technology, there are key areas where technology can further reduce operational risks, advance baseline processes to maximize waste throughput, and provide the underpinning to enhance operational flexibility; all steps in reducing mission duration and cost.
Yassin A. Hassan, Changwoo Kang
Nuclear Technology | Volume 180 | Number 2 | November 2012 | Pages 159-173
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-A14631
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Pressure drops over a packed bed of a pebble bed reactor were investigated. Measurements of porosity and pressure drop over the bed were carried out in a cylindrical packed-bed facility. Air and water were used for the working fluids. There are several parameters influencing the pressure drop in packed beds. One of the most important factors is the wall effect. The inhomogeneous porosity distribution in the bed and the additional wetted surface introduced by the wall cause variation of the pressure drop. The importance of wall effects and porosity can be explained by using different bed-to-particle-diameter ratios. Four different bed-to-particle-diameter ratios were used in these experiments (D/dp = 19, 9.5, 6.33, and 3.65). A comparison is made between the predictions by a number of empirical correlations including the Ergun equation (1952) and that of the Nuclear Safety Standards Commission (KTA) in the literature. Analysis of the data indicates the importance of the bed-to-particle-size ratio on the pressure drop. The comparison between the present and the existing correlations showed that the pressure drop of large bed-to-particle-diameter ratios (D/dp = 19, 9.5, and 6.33) matched very well with the original KTA correlation. However, the published correlations cannot be expected to predict accurate pressure drop for certain conditions, especially for pebble beds with D/dp 5. An improved correlation was obtained for a small bed-to-particle-diameter ratio by fitting the coefficients of that equation to experimental databases.