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Division Spotlight
Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
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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Glass strategy: Hanford’s enhanced waste glass program
The mission of the Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection (ORP) is to complete the safe cleanup of waste resulting from decades of nuclear weapons development. One of the most technologically challenging responsibilities is the safe disposition of approximately 56 million gallons of radioactive waste historically stored in 177 tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
ORP has a clear incentive to reduce the overall mission duration and cost. One pathway is to develop and deploy innovative technical solutions that can advance baseline flow sheets toward higher efficiency operations while reducing identified risks without compromising safety. Vitrification is the baseline process that will convert both high-level and low-level radioactive waste at Hanford into a stable glass waste form for long-term storage and disposal.
Although vitrification is a mature technology, there are key areas where technology can further reduce operational risks, advance baseline processes to maximize waste throughput, and provide the underpinning to enhance operational flexibility; all steps in reducing mission duration and cost.
David L. Luxat, Donald A. Kalanich, Joshua T. Hanophy, Randall O. Gauntt, Richard M. Wachowiak
Nuclear Technology | Volume 196 | Number 3 | December 2016 | Pages 684-697
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NT16-57
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Modular Accident Analysis Program (MAAP), Version 5 (MAAP5) and Methods of Estimation of Leakages and Consequences of Releases (MELCOR) are widely used integral plant response analysis computer codes. Both programs have been developed over the past 30 years for the purpose of simulating a range of beyond-design-basis accidents. The codes are benchmarked against numerous separate-effects experiments that reflect, to varying degrees, conditions expected to arise in light water reactor accidents. Such separate-effects tests, however, do not completely represent the novel physics that can arise through the interaction of multiple phenomena and physical processes at a reactor scale. Furthermore, aside from the Three Mile Island Unit 2 (TMI-2) core damage event, there is limited information available to evaluate reactor-scale behavior. Both MAAP5 and MELCOR have developed models to capture reactor-scale accident progression that, to a certain extent, extrapolate from separate-effects experiments, with assessment against the TMI-2 event only. Because of the limited information available to assess these extrapolated reactor-scale models, differences in MAAP5 and MELCOR code predictions do exist, most notably in the simulation of in-vessel core-melt progression. While these differences are not necessarily influential for the key metrics evaluated in probabilistic risk assessments, they can have a more pronounced impact on studies assessing the efficacy of accident management measures. This paper reports the first phase of a MAAP-MELCOR crosswalk designed to identify the key core-melt progression modeling differences. The results of this study highlight the impact that assumptions about reactor-scale, in-vessel core debris morphology have on (a) the potential for high temperatures to develop above the reactor core and in the main steam lines and (b) the magnitude and extent of the period for in-vessel hydrogen generation. These examples play critical roles in the evolution of challenges to the reactor pressure vessel pressure boundary and containment and are ultimately central to the evaluation of accident management effectiveness.