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What’s reshaping nuclear licensing and compliance today?
Mark Reidmeyer
It is the convergence of urgency, innovation, and modernization that is reshaping nuclear licensing and compliance today.
For decades, nuclear licensing operated in a relatively stable environment built around large light water reactors, predictable review cycles, and well-established regulatory pathways. Today, that model is evolving rapidly. Advanced reactors, AI-enabled tools, digital engineering platforms, grid reliability concerns, and aggressive decarbonization goals are all pushing the industry—and regulators—to move faster and think differently.
L. E. Hansen, E. D. Clayton
Nuclear Technology | Volume 6 | Number 4 | April 1969 | Pages 381-390
Technical Papers and Note | doi.org/10.13182/NT69-A28348
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Lack of experimental data for nuclear criticality control over operations with plutonium necessitates the use of computed critical parameters for guidance. To provide guidelines for criticality safety use, survey calculations for unreflected and water-reflected spheres, semi-infinite cylinders, and semi-infinite slabs have been made, using calculational techniques confirmed by available experimental data. The Pu(metal)-water mixtures examined cover the entire range of possible moderation ratios and have isotopic 240Pu contents of 20%. Critical experiment data for water-reflected spherical systems containing Pu(NO3)4 solutions with 435g Pu/liter at 4.6 wt% 240Pu were extrapolated by means of calculations to 239Pu(metal)-water mixtures for a direct comparison between calculations and experimentally derived critical parameters. The effect of 240Pu on criticality was examined as a function of both concentration and geometry. The manner in which 240Pu affected the minimum critical mass of Pu(metal)-water systems was also determined.