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Division Spotlight
Nuclear Installations Safety
Devoted specifically to the safety of nuclear installations and the health and safety of the public, this division seeks a better understanding of the role of safety in the design, construction and operation of nuclear installation facilities. The division also promotes engineering and scientific technology advancement associated with the safety of such facilities.
Meeting Spotlight
2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott 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
Countering the nuclear workforce shortage narrative
James Chamberlain, director of the Nuclear, Utilities, and Energy Sector at Rullion, has declared that the nuclear industry will not have workforce challenges going forward. “It’s time to challenge the scarcity narrative,” he wrote in a recent online article. “Nuclear isn't short of talent; it’s short of imagination in how it attracts, trains, and supports the workforce of the future.”
M. Rashid, S. Rahman, R. Kulenovic, M. Bürger, E. Laurien
Nuclear Technology | Volume 181 | Number 1 | January 2013 | Pages 208-215
Technical Paper | Special Issue on the 14th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-14) / Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-A15768
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the case of a severe accident, continuous unavailability of cooling water to the core will result in overheating and subsequent meltdown of the fuel elements that would eventually result in the loss of fuel integrity. Under such conditions a porous structure, which is made of heat-generating particles of different sizes and shapes, may be formed. The presence of decay heat in such a debris bed poses a critical threat to the reactor pressure vessel (RPV). To avoid any damage to the RPV, the removal of decay heat from the debris bed is of great importance. The debris bed needs to be quenched by water either flooding from the top or flooding from the bottom until continuous cooling is established. To investigate the quenching behavior of the debris bed by means of experiments, the nonnuclear test facility "DEBRIS" has been established at Institut für Kernenergetik und Energiesysteme (IKE). Experimental investigations of quenching behavior for a preheated debris bed, at various initial bed temperatures, are carried out at IKE. In the new quenching tests, the cooling-down behavior of a superheated polydispersed particle bed from stainless steel spheres at different thermohydraulic conditions has been investigated. Numerical investigation with IKE's MEWA-2D code has also been carried out for the quenching experiments in order to promote better understanding of the experimental results as well as to verify the code's applicability to the quenching process.