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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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The journey of the U.S. fuel cycle
Craig Piercycpiercy@ans.org
While most big journeys begin with a clear objective, they rarely start with an exact knowledge of the route. When commissioning the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson didn’t provide specific “turn right at the big mountain” directions to the Corps of Discovery. He gave goal-oriented instructions: explore the Missouri River, find its source, search for a transcontinental water route to the Pacific, and build scientific and cultural knowledge along the way.
Jefferson left it up to Lewis and Clark to turn his broad, geopolitically motivated guidance into gritty reality.
Similarly, U.S. nuclear policy has begun a journey toward closing the U.S. nuclear fuel cycle. There is a clear signal of support for recycling from the Trump administration, along with growing bipartisan excitement in Congress. Yet the precise path remains unclear.
Y.-M. Ferng, J. H. Hsieh, C. D. Horng
Nuclear Technology | Volume 153 | Number 2 | February 2006 | Pages 197-207
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT06-A3700
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A methodology that combines the Eulerian/Lagrangian droplet flow model and the droplet impingement erosion model is proposed in this paper to qualitatively predict the distributions of wall thinning locations on the shell wall of feedwater heaters (FWHs). This hybrid computational fluid dynamics model can simulate the three-dimensional distribution of steam flow and the rebound characteristics of droplets within the FWH shell. Coupled with the droplet flow characteristics, an appropriate indicator derived from the droplet impingement model is used to calculate the possible locations of severe wall thinning. The predicted wear sites on the shell wall correspond well with the plant-measured ones. Based on this good agreement, the methodology proposed herein might be used to help construct the monitoring project of wall thickness measurement for FWHs in the power plant, especially in the measuring areas on the shell wall.