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2026 Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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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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Modernizing I&C for operations and maintenance, one phase at a time
The two reactors at Dominion Energy’s Surry plant are among the oldest in the U.S. nuclear fleet. Yet when the plant celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2023, staff could raise a toast to the future. Surry was one of the first plants to file a subsequent license renewal (SLR) application, and in May 2021, it became official: the plant was licensed to operate for a full 80 years, extending its reactors’ lifespans into 2052 and 2053.
Niranjan Gudibande, Kannan Iyer
Nuclear Technology | Volume 196 | Number 3 | December 2016 | Pages 674-683
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NT16-40
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Radioactive materials are transported in hollow steel casks filled with lead. The lead in these casks can melt in an accidental fire during transportation leading to an increase in its volume. This plastically deforms the steel shell housing the lead. When the cask subsequently cools after the fire is extinguished, voids will form in the solidified lead. This work deals with the simulation of solidification with void formation in these transportation casks. In these simulations, one has to deal with solid-liquid and void-material interfaces. Solid-liquid movement during solidification is treated using a modified enthalpy method. The void that is formed in the solidified lead is assumed to be a vacuum. Consistent with this assumption, the boundary conditions of zero pressure and zero stress are imposed on the interface. The growth of the void is handled using the volume of fluid method. The methodology is first benchmarked by comparing the simulations with some experimental results available in the literature. Simulations are then performed for solidification in the transportation cask to study the effect of orientation on the void formation. A methodology is then developed to quantify the overall shielding effectiveness of the cask in terms of the total amount of radiation leaked.