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
May 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2026
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
NextEra, Dominion to merge in major utilities announcement
NextEra Energy is set to acquire Dominion Energy, the two utilities announced earlier today in an approximately $67 billion merger that will alter the energy landscape—including for nuclear power—in the United States.
Bassam I. Shamoun, Michael L. Corradini
Nuclear Technology | Volume 115 | Number 1 | July 1996 | Pages 35-45
Technical Paper | Nuclear Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT96-A35273
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Experimental observation has shown that the assumption of complete fuel fragmentation in a vapor explosion by the shock adiabatic thermodynamic model results in predicting upper bounds for the shock pressure, propagation velocity, and work output. This model has been modified by considering the condition where the assumption of complete fragmentation of the fuel is relaxed. A methodology is adopted using experimental values of the shock pressure and propagation velocity to estimate the initial mixture conditions of the experiment and the mass fraction of the materials participating in the explosion. Analysis of a steady-state subcritical vapor explosion in one dimension has been carried out by applying the conservation laws of mass, momentum, and energy and the appropriate equation of state for a homogeneous mixture of molten tin and water. The KROTOS-21 experiment, conducted at the Joint Research Center at Ispra, Italy, was used as the initial benchmark experiment in this analysis. A quasisteady explosion pressure of ∼3 MPa and a propagation velocity of ∼200 m/s were obtained in this experiment. Using this model, the estimated minimum mass of the fragmented fuel was found to be 0.21 kg (3.2%) of the total mass of the fuel. The predicted work output by this model corresponding to the aforementioned fragmented fuel mass was found to be 9.8 kJ. The estimated initial void fraction of the vapor was found to be 11.5%. In these analyses, a comparison is made of the various possible closure relations applied to the detonation wave theory for a vapor explosion and associated concerns of model stability in the two-phase region.