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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.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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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General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
Nichols
The Oak Ridger has published the latest in a series of articles about General Kenneth D. Nichols, the Manhattan Project, and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The series has been produced by Nichols’ grandniece Barbara Rogers Scollin and Oak Ridge (Tenn.) city historian David Ray Smith. Gen. Nichols (1907–2000) was the district engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District during the Manhattan Project.
As Smith and Scollin explain, Nichols “had supervision of the research and development connected with, and the design, construction, and operation of, all plants required to produce plutonium-239 and uranium-235, including the construction of the towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. The responsibility of his position was massive as he oversaw a workforce of both military and civilian personnel of approximately 125,000; his Oak Ridge office became the center of the wartime atomic energy’s activities.”
N. E. Stauff, L. Buiron, B. Fontaine, G. Rimpault
Nuclear Technology | Volume 181 | Number 2 | February 2013 | Pages 241-250
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-A15781
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs) remain the favorite candidate in France for a Generation IV (Gen IV) reactor fleet to be deployed within this century. Compared with earlier generations (Phénix, Superphénix, and European fast reactor), Gen IV SFRs require attractive economics together with enhanced safety and nonproliferation criteria. An innovative approach named Mathematical Estimation of Transients for Reactor design Orientation (METRO) has been developed with the objective of taking into account both SFR core economic performance and SFR transient incident behavior at an early stage of the core design process. Loss-of-flow, loss-of-heat-sink, and overpower transients are evaluated. Simplified modeling of transients has been developed and benchmarked against reference calculations with satisfactory results. The METRO approach to assessing the efficiency of design orientations is described in the following and applied to a carbide-fueled reactor core.
