ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Jun 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
July 2026
Nuclear Technology
June 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2026
Latest News
Spent fuel recycling and conditioning topic of U.S.-Japan meeting
Officials with the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management discussed spent nuclear fuel recycling and conditioning with counterparts from Japan during the 13th U.S.-Japan Technical Meeting of the Civil Nuclear Energy Research and Development Working Group, held recently in Santa Fe, N.M.
Philip E. MacDonald, James M. Broughton, Jay W. Spore
Nuclear Technology | Volume 44 | Number 3 | August 1979 | Pages 401-410
Technical Paper | Reactor Siting | doi.org/10.13182/NT79-A32275
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A preliminary evaluation was made of the results from the LOC-11 nuclear blowdown tests conducted in the Power Burst Facility. The objective of the LOC-11 tests was to measure the thermal and mechanical deformation behavior of pressurized and unpressurized fuel rods exposed to a blowdown (coolant depressurization) similar to that expected in a pressurized water reactor (PWR) during a hypothesized double-ended cold-leg break. Incipient fuel rod cladding collapse and swelling occurred during Test LOC-11C, when the two unpressurized and two pressurized PWR-type rods were exposed to a system blowdown with measured cladding temperatures increasing to 1030 K. To better understand the test results and to evaluate prediction capability, RELAP4-calculated coolant thermal-hydraulic and fuel rod thermal behavior and FRAP-T4-calculated fuel rod mechanical deformation behavior were compared with the test LOC-11C data. The RELAP4 posttest calculations of coolant behavior generally agreed well with the measured coolant behavior; however, the calculated cladding surface temperatures were ∼50 K greater than measured. The FRAP-T4 calculations of cladding deformation using “best-estimate” models slightly overpredicted the observed ballooning of the pressurized rods and underpredicted the collapse of the unpressurized rods.