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Division Spotlight
Nuclear Installations Safety
Devoted specifically to the safety of nuclear installations and the health and safety of the public, this division seeks a better understanding of the role of safety in the design, construction and operation of nuclear installation facilities. The division also promotes engineering and scientific technology advancement associated with the safety of such facilities.
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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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Latest News
Can hydrogen be the transportation fuel in an otherwise nuclear economy?
Let’s face it: The global economy should be powered primarily by nuclear power. And it probably will by the end of this century, with a still-significant assist from renewables and hydro. Once nuclear systems are dominant, the costs come down to where gas is now; and when carbon emissions are reduced to a small portion of their present state, it will become obvious that most other sources are only good in niche settings. I mean, why use small modular reactors to load-follow when they can just produce that power instead of buffering it?
Seok Yoon, Min-Jun Kim, Seung-Rae Lee, Geon-Young Kim
Nuclear Technology | Volume 204 | Number 2 | November 2018 | Pages 213-226
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1471909
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A deep geological repository has been considered as one of the most appropriate options for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste (HLW), and it will be constructed in a host rock area at a depth of 500 to 1000 m below the ground surface. The geological repository system is based on the concept of an engineered barrier system, and it consists of a disposal canister with packed spent fuel, buffer material, backfill material, and intact rock. The buffer plays an important role to assure the disposal safety of HLW since it can restrain the release of radionuclides and protect the canister from the inflow of groundwater. Since an increased heat quantity is released from the disposal canister into the surrounding buffer material, the thermal conductivity of the buffer material constitutes a key parameter needed to analyze the entire disposal safety. Therefore, this study presents a thermal conductivity prediction model for compacted bentonite buffer material from Kyungju, which is the only bentonite produced in Korea. The thermal conductivity of the compacted bentonite buffer from Kyungju was measured using a hot-wire method according to varying degrees of saturation, dry density, and temperature. The measurements showed that the thermal conductivity was concurrently influenced by the degree of saturation, dry density, and temperature variation. A regression model was proposed to predict the thermal conductivity of the compacted bentonite buffer from Kyungju using the degree of saturation and the dry density as the dependent variables. An additional regression model was also introduced that incorporated the temperature variation as an additional dependent variable, and the two models were directly compared with each other.