ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
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Division Spotlight
Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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
NRC updating GEIS rule for new nuclear technology
The Nuclear Regulatory Agency is issuing a proposed generic environmental impact statement (GEIS) for use in reviewing applications for new nuclear reactors.
In an April 17 memo, NRC secretary Carrie Safford wrote that the commission approved NRC staff’s recommendation to publish in the Federal Register a proposed rule amending 10 CFR Part 51, “Environmental Protection Regulations for Domestic Licensing and Related Regulatory Functions.”
Benoît Dessirier, Jerker Jarsjö, Andrew Frampton
Nuclear Technology | Volume 187 | Number 2 | August 2014 | Pages 147-157
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-77
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Deep geological repositories are generally considered as suitable environments for final disposal of spent nuclear fuel. In the Swedish and Finnish repository design concept, canisters are to be placed in deep underground tunnels in sparsely fractured crystalline bedrock, in deposition holes in which each canister is embedded with an expansive bentonite-clay-mixture buffer. A set of semigeneric two-dimensional radially symmetric TOUGH2 simulations are conducted to investigate the multiphase dynamics and interactions between water and air in a bentonite-rock environment. The main objective is to identify how sensitive saturation times of bentonite are to the geometry of the rock fractures and to commonly adopted simplifications in the unsaturated flow description such as Richards assumptions. Results show that the location of the intersection between the fracture system and the deposition hole is a key factor affecting saturation times. A potential long-lasting desaturation of the rock matrix close to the bentonite-rock interface is also identified extending up to 10 cm inside the rock. Two-phase-flow models predict systematically longer saturation times compared to a simplified Richards approximation, which is frequently used to represent unsaturated flows. The discrepancy diverges considerably as full saturation is approached.