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Division Spotlight
Nuclear Installations Safety
Devoted specifically to the safety of nuclear installations and the health and safety of the public, this division seeks a better understanding of the role of safety in the design, construction and operation of nuclear installation facilities. The division also promotes engineering and scientific technology advancement associated with the safety of such facilities.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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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General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
Nichols
The Oak Ridger has published the latest in a series of articles about General Kenneth D. Nichols, the Manhattan Project, and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The series has been produced by Nichols’ grandniece Barbara Rogers Scollin and Oak Ridge (Tenn.) city historian David Ray Smith. Gen. Nichols (1907–2000) was the district engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District during the Manhattan Project.
As Smith and Scollin explain, Nichols “had supervision of the research and development connected with, and the design, construction, and operation of, all plants required to produce plutonium-239 and uranium-235, including the construction of the towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. The responsibility of his position was massive as he oversaw a workforce of both military and civilian personnel of approximately 125,000; his Oak Ridge office became the center of the wartime atomic energy’s activities.”
J. C. Kang, J. S. Jeong, D. H. Lee, T. L. George, J. W. Lane, S. G. Thomasson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 207 | Number 12 | December 2021 | Pages 1851-1864
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2020.1858628
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
GOTHIC and RELAP5 have been coupled to model the containment and passive containment cooling system (PCCS) for the Korean advanced containment designs. In the coupled system, GOTHIC models the containment and the outer shell (mid tube wall to outside surface) of the PCCS heat exchanger tubes and RELAP5 models the inner shell (inside surface to mid tube wall) and the coolant loop to the external heat sink. The coupling approach leverages the modeling capabilities of RELAP5 for piping load analysis and the capabilities of GOTHIC for containment and heat/mass transfer with noncondensing gases. With the coupled model, it is possible to apply the thermal-hydraulic load analysis on the PCCS supply and return piping considering the containment conditions predicted by GOTHIC during a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA). This paper describes the coupling approach, a coupling dynamic linked library for GOTHIC, modifications to RELAP5, and verification of the coupling. Last, demonstration results from a LOCA simulation with four PCCS trains is provided and the results of the GOTHIC/RELAP5–coupled model are compared to a GOTHIC-only result, where GOTHIC was used to model both the containment and the PCCS.
