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Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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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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Latest News
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.
B. Pollack, B. J. Lewis, D. Kelly
Nuclear Technology | Volume 182 | Number 1 | April 2013 | Pages 39-48
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors/Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-A15824
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Current limitations of Canadian Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) reactors to reliably locate defective fuel bundles have created interest in new identification techniques. Noble gas tagging, which would involve the addition of specific combinations of Kr and Xe isotopes to the fuel-to-sheath gap during manufacturing, has the potential to offer a means of locating failed-fuel bundles on power, where the released tag could be measured in the primary heat transport system by mass spectrometry. Moreover, the technique could be of particular interest for demonstration irradiations with new fuel bundle designs. This work outlines preliminary considerations on the applicability of noble gas tagging for CANDU reactors. This assessment involved the determination of suitable tag isotopes, the simulation of the impact of the tag on the thermal performance of a fuel element, and the determination of the detection limit of a quadrupole inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometer instrument for krypton samples with typical aqueous concentrations in the range of 10-12 to 10-9 (molKr/molH2O).
