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Division Spotlight
Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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.
Jun Fang, Joseph J. Cambareri, Mengnan Li, Nadish Saini, Igor A. Bolotnov
Nuclear Technology | Volume 206 | Number 2 | February 2020 | Pages 133-149
Critical Review | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2019.1620056
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This critical review paper outlines the recent progress in high-resolution numerical simulations of two-phase coolant flow in light water reactor–relevant geometries by resolving the water-vapor interface. Rapid development of capabilities in high-performance computing is creating exciting opportunities to study complex reactor thermal-hydraulic phenomena. Today’s advances in thermal-hydraulic analysis and interface-resolved simulations will help pave the way to the next level of understanding of two-phase flow behavior in complex geometries. This paper consists of two major parts: (1) a brief review of direct numerical simulation and interface tracking simulation and (2) several opportunities in the near future to apply cutting-edge simulation and analysis capabilities to address the nuclear-related multiphase flow challenges. The first part will discuss typical computational methods used for the simulations and provide some examples of the past work as well as computational cost estimates and affordability of such simulations for research and industrial applications. In the second part specific application examples are discussed, from adiabatic bubbly flow simulations in pressurized water reactor subchannel geometry to the modeling of nucleate boiling. The uniqueness of this study lies in the specific focus on applications with nuclear engineering interest as well as new generation modeling and analysis methodologies. Together with the ever-growing computing power, the related large-scale two-phase flow simulations will become indispensable for the improved scientific understanding of complex two-phase flow phenomena in nuclear reactors under normal operation and postulated accident conditions.