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Conference Spotlight
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.
Jau-Tyne Yeh, Ta-Lun Sung, J. Y. Shiue
Nuclear Technology | Volume 156 | Number 2 | November 2006 | Pages 125-132
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT06-A3778
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A tool, AFDCONTROL, is developed to help the operators of pressurized water reactors predict axial flux difference (AFD) and find the control rod positions for power maneuvers. AFDCONTROL has used an off-line procedure to simulate AFD.After adopting a long-cycle strategy as the fuel management policy of Maanshan nuclear power plant (MNPP), AFD control during the power reduction near end of cycle (EOC) becomes more difficult than before. In this study, we have used AFDCONTROL to simulate this trend. AFDCONTROL suggests that AFD (even at higher burnup conditions) can be controlled by extending the power reduction rate. After implantation of the AFDCONTROL tool in MNPP, the operators of MNPP units have used AFDCONTROL to find the control rod sequences and positions under certain power reduction rates to control AFD without violating limits, especially at EOC of the high-burnup cycle.
