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Division Spotlight
Materials Science & Technology
The objectives of MSTD are: promote the advancement of materials science in Nuclear Science Technology; support the multidisciplines which constitute it; encourage research by providing a forum for the presentation, exchange, and documentation of relevant information; promote the interaction and communication among its members; and recognize and reward its members for significant contributions to the field of materials science in nuclear technology.
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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February 2024
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?
Hongbin Zhang, Ronaldo Szilard, Ling Zou, Haihua Zhao
Nuclear Technology | Volume 205 | Number 1 | January-February 2019 | Pages 174-187
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1496694
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is proposing a new rulemaking on emergency core system/loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) performance analysis. In the proposed rulemaking, designated as 10 CFR 50.46c, the NRC puts forward an equivalent cladding oxidation criterion as a function of cladding pretransient hydrogen content. The proposed rulemaking imposes more restrictive and burnup-dependent cladding embrittlement criteria; consequently, more fuel rods need to be analyzed under LOCA conditions to maintain the safety margin, in contrast to the current practice for which only one hot rod needs to be analyzed. New multiphysics analysis methods are required to provide a thorough characterization of the reactor core in order to identify the locations of the limiting rods and quantify safety margins under LOCA conditions. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program has initiated a project to develop multiphysics analytical capabilities, called LOTUS, to support the industry in the transition to the proposed rule. An approach to uncertainty quantification and sensitivity analysis with LOTUS was developed. A typical four-loop pressurized water reactor plant model was developed for RELAP5-3D simulations with inputs generated from core design and fuel performance analyses, and uncertainty quantification and sensitivity analysis were performed with 17 uncertain input parameters. The maximum equivalent cladding reacted ratio and peak clad temperature ratio were selected as the figures of merit (FOMs). Pearson, Spearman, partial correlation coefficients, and Sobol indices were considered for all of the FOMs in the sensitivity analysis.