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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.
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2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
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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High-temperature plumbing and advanced reactors
The use of nuclear fission power and its role in impacting climate change is hotly debated. Fission advocates argue that short-term solutions would involve the rapid deployment of Gen III+ nuclear reactors, like Vogtle-3 and -4, while long-term climate change impact would rely on the creation and implementation of Gen IV reactors, “inherently safe” reactors that use passive laws of physics and chemistry rather than active controls such as valves and pumps to operate safely. While Gen IV reactors vary in many ways, one thing unites nearly all of them: the use of exotic, high-temperature coolants. These fluids, like molten salts and liquid metals, can enable reactor engineers to design much safer nuclear reactors—ultimately because the boiling point of each fluid is extremely high. Fluids that remain liquid over large temperature ranges can provide good heat transfer through many demanding conditions, all with minimal pressurization. Although the most apparent use for these fluids is advanced fission power, they have the potential to be applied to other power generation sources such as fusion, thermal storage, solar, or high-temperature process heat.1–3
Jaeseok Heo, Kyung Doo Kim, Byoung Jae Kim
Nuclear Technology | Volume 204 | Number 2 | November 2018 | Pages 162-171
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1471908
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper deals with numerical challenges associated with simulating thermal-hydraulic phenomena in nuclear reactors with one-dimensional system analysis codes. The main focus of this research is directed toward assessment of the pressure gradient in vertically stratified flow, particularly the separate pressure drop effects for gas and liquid phases along the control cell. The pressure drop term in momentum conservation currently being developed based on the assumption of gas and liquid combined pressure drop was redefined such that two different pressures were imposed for gas and liquid separately. The verification of the proposed momentum equation for a vertically stratified flow was completed through simulations of the liquid velocity in a U-shaped manometer. Sensitivity analysis was also performed by increasing liquid mass in the pipe leading to different positions of the liquid-vapor interface from the bottom of each manometer pipe when the flow oscillation is stopped; i.e., the interfaces are not only cell boundaries but also various positions between cell edges. As a result, improved simulation results were obtained using the modified equations as it was indicated that the oscillation of fluid decays over time while the original solution for the large pipe does not converge to zero due to a mainly incorrect pressure drop term.