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Division Spotlight
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
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?
Seong-Wan Hong, Sang Ho Kim, Rae-Joon Park
Nuclear Technology | Volume 206 | Number 3 | March 2020 | Pages 401-413
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2019.1654816
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the postulated severe accidents of nuclear power plants, the interaction mode of the molten corium with water happens differently depending on the height of the water level in the reactor cavity. The interaction of the molten corium with the partially filled water in the reactor cavity has been extensively studied. The molten corium in this case was released into the water after free falling to some distance. Meanwhile, some advanced reactors have adapted the in-vessel corium retention concept by cooling the reactor vessel’s outside wall. If a reactor vessel failure happens in this case, the molten corium in the reactor vessel is injected directly into the water without any free fall. Triggered steam explosion experiments were carried out to compare the explosion behavior conditions of the partially flooded cavity and ex-vessel cooling. It was found that the jet breakup process before the explosion appeared differently between the two experiments. These behaviors contributed to the differences in the maximum dynamic pressure and load that express the explosion’s strength. The explosion’s strength under the partially flooded cavity condition was about two times stronger than that under ex-vessel cooling. Accordingly, it is believed that the steam explosions under conditions of ex-vessel cooling are of less concern than the partially flooded cavity condition.