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 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
Mar 2026
Jan 2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
April 2026
Nuclear Technology
February 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Swiss nuclear power and the case for long-term operation
Designed for 40 years but built to last far longer, Switzerland’s nuclear power plants have all entered long-term operation. Yet age alone says little about safety or performance. Through continuous upgrades, strict regulatory oversight, and extensive aging management, the country’s reactors are being prepared for decades of continued operation, in line with international practice.
Judith K. Hohorst, Chris M. Allison
Nuclear Technology | Volume 98 | Number 2 | May 1992 | Pages 149-159
Technical Paper | Nuclear Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT92-A34670
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The SCDAP/RELAP5 severe accident analysis computer code, developed at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, is used to analyze the fourth in a series of debris formation experiments. The debris formation-four (DF-4) experiment deals with heatup and meltdown of a boiling water reactor (BWR)-representative fuel and control blade assembly segment, performed in the Annular Core Research Reactor at Sandia National Laboratories. The DF-4 experiment provides data that are used to validate core damage progression and BWR-specific models to gain an understanding of the phenomena occurring in the bundle during a severe BWR accident and to identify additional modeling needed in severe accident codes. The SCDAP/RELAP5 model used for this analysis accurately predicts the key damage events, which include control blade melting, channel box relocation and runaway oxidation, the order and timing of these events, and the maximum bundle temperature. From these analytical calculations, an accident scenario and insights into phenomena occurring during a severe BWR accident are developed.