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Division Spotlight
Decommissioning & Environmental Sciences
The mission of the Decommissioning and Environmental Sciences (DES) Division is to promote the development and use of those skills and technologies associated with the use of nuclear energy and the optimal management and stewardship of the environment, sustainable development, decommissioning, remediation, reutilization, and long-term surveillance and maintenance of nuclear-related installations, and sites. The target audience for this effort is the membership of the Division, the Society, and the public at large.
Meeting Spotlight
Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2023)
February 6–9, 2023
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
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 2023
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Latest News
University of Florida-led consortium to research nuclear forensics
A 16-university team of 31 scientists and engineers, under the title Consortium for Nuclear Forensics and led by the University of Florida, has been selected by the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to develop the next generation of new technologies and insights in nuclear forensics.
Grégory Perret, Damar Wicaksono, Ivor D. Clifford, Hakim Ferroukhi
Nuclear Technology | Volume 208 | Number 4 | April 2022 | Pages 711-722
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2021.1936879
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Best estimate plus uncertainty for the safety assessment of nuclear power plant transient requires, among others, estimating the probability density function (PDF) of physical model parameters in thermal-hydraulic system codes. In that context, Bayesian calibration based on experimental data from separate-effect test facilities are increasingly popular to inform the PDF of a single thermal-hydraulic phenomenon. These calibrations are, however, time intensive, especially when considering multiple time-dependent outputs. Calibrating on many tests with different boundary conditions and potentially different phenomena to derive PDFs applicable to complex transients appears intractable, even using hierarchical modeling. In this paper, we start investigating this problem by considering a set of Flooding Experiments with Blocked Arrays reflood tests with different boundary conditions. We use TRACE v5.0p3 to model time- and space-dependent temperature profiles, pressure drops, and liquid carry-over. Global sensitivity analysis helps screen out noninfluential parameters and gain a detailed understanding of the modeled physics of reflood. The analysis shows that, for all tests, the outputs were sensitive to a similar set of influential model parameters. In turn, Bayesian calibration yields similar posterior PDFs for the influential parameters, and forward propagation of these posterior PDFs yields similar confidence intervals. As such, the information of the investigated tests can well be represented by a unique posterior PDF. Such simplifications, although not general, are welcome to help manage the intensive calibration effort necessary for dealing with complex thermal-hydraulic transients encountered in nuclear power plants.
