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Division Spotlight
Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Winter Conference and Expo
November 17–21, 2024
Orlando, FL|Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld
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
Tank waste operations resume at Idaho’s IWTU
The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced yesterday that waste processing operations have resumed at the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) at the Idaho National Laboratory Site. The resumption of operations follows the completion of two maintenance campaigns at the radioactive liquid waste treatment facility.
Xingang Zhao, Koroush Shirvan, Yingwei Wu, Mujid S. Kazimi
Nuclear Technology | Volume 196 | Number 3 | December 2016 | Pages 553-567
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NT16-45
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
With the objective of providing long-term energy supply via actinide breeding and burning, the next-generation boiling water reactor (BWR) design, the Hitachi’s resource-renewable BWR (RBWR), has been proposed. Unlike a traditional square lattice BWR fuel bundle, the RBWR bundles are shorter with hexagonal tight lattice arrangement and heterogeneous axial fuel zoning. The RBWR’s different core geometry combined with the higher power-to-flow ratio and void fraction necessitates the reexamination of the standard BWR thermal-hydraulic models.
For the prediction of dryout, the previously derived best-estimate empirical correlation showed significant scatter when compared to experimental data within its calibration database. In this work, the correlation is further calibrated and improved by supplementing tight bundle data with relevant critical power data for tubes and annuli to better quantify the effects of various parameters and by incorporating subchannel-level results to account for intra-assembly flow mixing. Another approach using the mechanistic three-field model is also investigated, and the minimum critical power ratio of the RBWR design is evaluated.
For the prediction of void fraction, measurements and the three-field model in annular flow regime reveal that the common drift flux approaches tend to overestimate the void fraction at small hydraulic diameters. The void fraction dependence on hydraulic diameter below 10 mm requires further experimentation and high-fidelity mechanistic simulations.