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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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OECD NEA meeting focuses on irradiation experiments
Members of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency’s Second Framework for Irradiation Experiments (FIDES-II) joint undertaking gathered from September 29 to October 3 in Ketchum, Idaho, for the technical advisory group and governing board meetings hosted by Idaho National Laboratory. The FIDES-II Framework aims to ensure and foster competences in experimental nuclear fuel and structural materials in-reactor experiments through a diverse set of Joint Experimental Programs (JEEPs).
Richard R. Hobbins, Malcolm L. Russell, Charles S. Olsen, Richard K. McCardell
Nuclear Technology | Volume 87 | Number 4 | December 1989 | Pages 1005-1012
Late Paper | TMI-2: Decontamination and Waste Management / Nuclear Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT89-A27692
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The behavior of melts in severe accident sequences affects the nature (composition and fission product inventory) of the debris released from the vessel upon lower head failure in unmitigated accidents and the coolability of debris at various stages in managed accidents. Core melting progressed further in the Three Mile Island Unit 2 (TMI-2) accident than in any of the severe core damage experiments that have been conducted since the accident, and, therefore, TMI-2 represents a valuable source of information that extends into later phases of core melt progression, including melt relocation into the lower plenum. Examination and evaluation of melts within the TMI-2 reactor vessel indicate that melts can form uncoolable geometries in the core but they can also break through the surrounding crust, massively relocate into the lower plenum, and fragment upon interaction with water resident in the lower plenum to form a rubble bed of coolable geometry. The chemistry of melts, particularly the oxygen potential, affects fission product chemical form and, therefore, retention in the melt. The chemistry also determines interactions of the melts with reactor pressure vessel components.