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Division Spotlight
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
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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Latest News
WIPP improves utility shaft safety, begins infrastructure project
Harrison Western Shaft Sinkers (HWSS), the company drilling a new utility shaft at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, has retained a safety culture expert following a near-miss accident in the shaft late last year. The safety expert will conduct monthly facilitated discussions with crews working on the shaft to reinforce expectations for identifying concerns regarding unsafe circumstances, according to a recent report by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB).
L. San-Felice, R. Eschbach, P. Bourdot
Nuclear Technology | Volume 184 | Number 2 | November 2013 | Pages 217-232
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-121
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The DARWIN package, developed by the CEA and its French partners (AREVA and EDF), provides the parameters required for fuel cycle applications: fuel inventory; decay heat; activity; neutron, gamma, alpha, and beta sources and spectra; and radiotoxicity. This paper presents the DARWIN2.3 experimental validation for fuel inventory and decay heat calculations on pressurized water reactors (PWRs). To validate this code system for spent fuel inventory, a large program has been undertaken, based on spent fuel chemical assays. This paper deals with the experimental validation of DARWIN2.3 for PWR uranium oxide and mixed oxide (MOX) fuel inventory calculation, focused on the isotopes involved in burnup credit applications and decay heat computations. The calculation-to-experiment ratio [(C - E)/1] discrepancies are calculated with the latest European evaluation file JEFF-3.1.1 associated with the Santamarina-Hfaiedh energy mesh. An overview of the tendencies is obtained on a complete range of burnup from 10 to 85 GWd/tonne (10 to 60 GWd/tonne for MOX fuel). The experimental validation of the DARWIN2.3 package for decay heat calculation is performed using calorimetric measurements carried out at the Swedish interim spent fuel storage facility, Clab, for PWR assemblies, covering large burnup (20 to 50 GWd/tonne) and cooling time (10 to 30 year) ranges.