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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
David A. Greene
Nuclear Technology | Volume 14 | Number 3 | June 1972 | Pages 218-231
Technical Paper | Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT72-A31111
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A computer code has been written to predict pressure on the shell side of a steam generator during a large scale sodium-water reaction. A typical pressure transient has two main features. An initial pressure spike is followed by a secondary pressure pulse whose amplitude is a function of the inertia forces governing the growth of the hydrogen bubble. Unlike the primary pressure spike which lasts a very short time, the secondary pulse can last for a long time and must be considered a steady-state pressure acting on the shell. Rupture disks under sodium may not provide an effective means of relieving the secondary pressure pulse unless the sodium-water reaction occurs close enough to the disk to cause its rapid failure. It is concluded that both superheater and evaporator units of a reference steam generator design can withstand the pressure transient associated with the sodium-water reaction resulting from a guillotine failure of a single heat transfer tube.