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Human Factors, Instrumentation & Controls
Improving task performance, system reliability, system and personnel safety, efficiency, and effectiveness are the division's main objectives. Its major areas of interest include task design, procedures, training, instrument and control layout and placement, stress control, anthropometrics, psychological input, and motivation.
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2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
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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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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
Jacob A. Farber, Daniel G. Cole, Ahmad Y. Al Rashdan, Vaibhav Yadav
Nuclear Technology | Volume 205 | Number 8 | August 2019 | Pages 1043-1052
Technical Paper – Special section on Big Data for Nuclear Power Plants | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1534484
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper presents data-driven methods to detect loss-of-coolant accidents (LOCAs) in the primary side of a pressurized water reactor. Process data for a variety of accident scenarios have been generated and collected using a generic pressurized water reactor simulator. The data have been used to train kernel density functions, which estimate nonparametric probability density functions based on training data. These density functions have then been used with Bayesian hypothesis testing and maximum likelihood estimation to detect the onset of the LOCAs and to identify where in the primary side the leaks have occurred. The methods have been able to detect the LOCAs for all scenarios tested with an average detection delay of one-seventh the time for the reactor to trip. Furthermore, the methods have been able to correctly identify the leak locations for 92.3% of the scenarios tested, with higher success rates for larger leaks.