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Division Spotlight
Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
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2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott 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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Smarter waste strategies: Helping deliver on the promise of advanced nuclear
At COP28, held in Dubai in 2023, a clear consensus emerged: Nuclear energy must be a cornerstone of the global clean energy transition. With electricity demand projected to soar as we decarbonize not just power but also industry, transport, and heat, the case for new nuclear is compelling. More than 20 countries committed to tripling global nuclear capacity by 2050. In the United States alone, the Department of Energy forecasts that the country’s current nuclear capacity could more than triple, adding 200 GW of new nuclear to the existing 95 GW by mid-century.
Antti Daavittila, Anitta Hämäläinen, Riitta Kyrki-Rajamäki
Nuclear Technology | Volume 142 | Number 2 | May 2003 | Pages 116-123
Technical Paper | OECD/NRC MSLB Benchmark | doi.org/10.13182/NT03-A3377
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
All of the three exercises of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development/Nuclear Regulatory Commission pressurized water reactor main steam line break (PWR MSLB) benchmark were calculated at VTT, the Technical Research Centre of Finland. For the first exercise, the plant simulation with point-kinetic neutronics, the thermal-hydraulics code SMABRE was used. The second exercise was calculated with the three-dimensional reactor dynamics code TRAB-3D, and the third exercise with the combination TRAB-3D/SMABRE. VTT has over ten years' experience of coupling neutronic and thermal-hydraulic codes, but this benchmark was the first time these two codes, both developed at VTT, were coupled together. The coupled code system is fast and efficient; the total computation time of the 100-s transient in the third exercise was 16 min on a modern UNIX workstation. The results of all the exercises are similar to those of the other participants. In order to demonstrate the effect of secondary circuit modeling on the results, three different cases were calculated. In case 1 there is no phase separation in the steam lines and no flow reversal in the aspirator. In case 2 the flow reversal in the aspirator is allowed, but there is no phase separation in the steam lines. Finally, in case 3 the drift-flux model is used for the phase separation in the steam lines, but the aspirator flow reversal is not allowed. With these two modeling variations, it is possible to cover a remarkably broad range of results. The maximum power level reached after the reactor trip varies from 534 to 904 MW, the range of the time of the power maximum being close to 30 s. Compared to the total calculated transient time of 100 s, the effect of the secondary side modeling is extremely important.