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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.
Meeting Spotlight
2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
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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Nuclear Science and Engineering
July 2025
Nuclear Technology
June 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
High-temperature plumbing and advanced reactors
The use of nuclear fission power and its role in impacting climate change is hotly debated. Fission advocates argue that short-term solutions would involve the rapid deployment of Gen III+ nuclear reactors, like Vogtle-3 and -4, while long-term climate change impact would rely on the creation and implementation of Gen IV reactors, “inherently safe” reactors that use passive laws of physics and chemistry rather than active controls such as valves and pumps to operate safely. While Gen IV reactors vary in many ways, one thing unites nearly all of them: the use of exotic, high-temperature coolants. These fluids, like molten salts and liquid metals, can enable reactor engineers to design much safer nuclear reactors—ultimately because the boiling point of each fluid is extremely high. Fluids that remain liquid over large temperature ranges can provide good heat transfer through many demanding conditions, all with minimal pressurization. Although the most apparent use for these fluids is advanced fission power, they have the potential to be applied to other power generation sources such as fusion, thermal storage, solar, or high-temperature process heat.1–3
Djillali Saad, Mohamed Elhadi Boulheouchat, Mohamed Bouaouina, Tahar Zidi
Nuclear Technology | Volume 211 | Number 1 | January 2025 | Pages 127-142
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2024.2323226
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Nuclear safety relies heavily on the quality of the results of numerical simulation codes. Among the various components of the simulation of the installation are the pellet-cladding mechanical interaction (PCMI), and the peak cladding temperature (PCT). Although the correlations describing the physical, mechanical, chemical, and thermal phenomena that occur in nuclear installations have reached a high level of quality, there remain uncertainties on the final results due to uncertainties in the input parameters which cannot be eliminated. A realistic estimate of these uncertainties is necessary to evaluate the reliability of the simulation results.
When the best-estimate approach plus uncertainty (BEPU) is employed in the design of a nuclear installation, design-basis accidents are studied more realistically. This method must be used even in the design of research reactors because they are at the origin of any development of nuclear technology. We propose through this study an uncertainty and sensitivity analysis of PCMI and PCT of a heavy water nuclear research reactor fuel rod.
To determine the input parameters that influence PCMI and PCT, we utilize the FEMAXI-6 code. The thermodynamic table of the FEMAXI-6 code is adapted to the case of heavy water. Two system codes are used for uncertainty and sensitivity analysis: RELAP5 and PARET. The study confirmed that in the event of a shortage of heavy water, light water can be injected in its place to remove decay heat from the core and shut down the reactor safely. The safety margin between the PCT and the saturation temperature is reduced from about 10°C in the conservative approach to less than 1°C by the BEPU approach.