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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
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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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May 2025
Latest News
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
Ralph W. Seidensticker, Howard L. Schreyer
Nuclear Technology | Volume 51 | Number 3 | December 1980 | Pages 489-498
Technical Paper | Mechanics Applications to Fast Breeder Reactor Safety / Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT80-A32584
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Prestressed concrete containment structures can withstand the highest pressures resulting from the worst accident conditions postulated for liquid-metal fast breeder reactor plants. However, in addition to pressure loads, other potential hazards exist, such as internally generated missiles, hydrogen deflagration, and sodium fire. The latter is potentially the most critical because of the high temperatures that are involved. Preliminary indications are that with a reasonable research effort focused on experiments, appropriate constitutive models, and innovative design concepts, it would be shown that this threat could also be contained. The research is proposed because there is a good possibility that prestressed concrete could withstand in a completely passive mode all of the accident scenarios that are currently being postulated. If this could be shown in a definitive sense, the social and economic benefits would be very significant.