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Meeting Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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
The U.S. Million Person Study of Low-Dose-Rate Health Effects
There is a critical knowledge gap regarding the health consequences of exposure to radiation received gradually over time. While there is a plethora of studies on the risks of adverse outcomes from both acute and high-dose exposures, including the landmark study of atomic bomb survivors, these are not characteristic of the chronic exposure to low-dose radiation encountered in occupational and public settings. In addition, smaller cohorts have limited numbers leading to reduced statistical power.
A. Nava-Dominguez, S. Liu, T. Beuthe, B. P. Bromley, A. V. Colton
Nuclear Technology | Volume 207 | Number 8 | August 2021 | Pages 1216-1236
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2020.1813463
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The use of advanced uranium-based and thorium-based fuel bundles in a 700-MW(electric)–class pressure tube heavy water reactor (PT-HWR) has the potential for improved performance characteristics with higher burnup, higher fissile fuel utilization, and lower coolant void reactivity while also extracting the energy potential in thorium. In this study, thermal-hydraulic subchannel analyses were performed for a single, high-power (6.5 MW), 12-bundle fuel channel at typical reactor operating conditions for 14 different PT-HWR lattice/core concepts using various types of advanced uranium-based and thorium-based fuels in 37-element and 35-element fuel bundle design concepts. Fuel bundle radial power distributions for fresh fuel at zero burnup were used in the thermal-hydraulic calculations, as a bounding case, along with axial power distributions that are representative of those that may be found in a high-power fuel channel in a PT-HWR core at near-equilibrium refueling conditions. The fuel bundle radial power distributions and fuel channel axial power distributions were determined from previous lattice physics and core physics studies. Based on the subchannel thermal-hydraulic analyses, the LC-05b/CC-04 BUNDLE-37-mod concept and the LC-12b/CC-08 BUNDLE-35 concept are recommended as the best candidates for further full-core system thermal-hydraulic transient analyses, based on critical heat flux and void fraction performance factors. BUNDLE-37 concept LC-01/CC-00 is also recommended as the reference case for future analysis.