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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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Latest News
NERS publishes report on machine learning and microreactors
The University of Michigan’s Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences (NERS) has published a summary of a study on nuclear microreactors and machine learning (ML) that was conducted by researchers from NERS and Idaho National Laboratory. The full paper, “Nuclear Microreactor Transient and Load-Following Control with Deep Reinforcement Learning,” was featured in the July issue of Energy Conversion and Management: X.
R. C. Erdmann, F. L. Leverenz, Jr., G. S. Lellouche
Nuclear Technology | Volume 53 | Number 3 | June 1981 | Pages 374-380
Technical Paper | Nuclear Fuel Cycle Education Module / Nuclear Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT81-A32645
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
For the specific reactors evaluated in the Reactor Safety Study (WASH-1400), quantified uncertainties in the calculated consequences and probabilities were reported, along with median estimates. The WASH-1400 evaluation of early fatalities gave these uncertainties as multiplicative factors of (, 4) on consequences and (, 5) on probabilities. Accounting for factors that were not considered, these uncertainties are better stated as multiplicative factors of (, 15) and (, 20) for consequences and probabilities, respectively. In addition to this change in uncertainty, the median values of early fatalities reported in WASH-1400 may be too high by factors of 5 for consequences and 12 for probabilities. Thus, a new upper bound is found that is less than that stated in WASH-1400.
