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Division Spotlight
Nuclear Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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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Report: New York state adding 1 GW of nuclear to fleet
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has instructed the state’s public electric utility to add at least 1 gigawatt of new nuclear by building a large-scale nuclear plant or a collection of smaller modular reactors, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Xiaoli Wu, Jian Deng, Liqiang Hou, Lili Liu, Dan Zhang , Hongsheng Yuan (Nuclear Power Inst of China)
Proceedings | 2018 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2018) | Charlotte, NC, April 8-11, 2018 | Pages 584-589
MAAP5 is capable of simulating the whole response of a PWR nuclear power plant under severe accident conditions. An analysis of the severe accident scenarios in a PWR by MAAP5 were carried out. It was assumed that the severe accident was initiated by an unusual small-break loss-of-coolant accident (SBLOCA) at the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) lower head and the failure of high-pressure injection system (HPIS) in a PWR by using MAAP5 were carried out. Different break sizes with and without manual depressurization of the reactor coolant system (RCS) were studied. The results showed that without manually depressurization the RCS, reactor core underwent slow heatup and completely melted and eventually failed the RPV lower head at the primary system pressure of 6.87 MPa for 0.4-inch-break LOCA and 2.71 MPa for 1.0-inch-break LOCA. On the other hand, timely manually opening the pressurizer (PZR) safety valves (SVs) was an effective mitigation measure to recover the core coolabilty by cold-leg accumulator injection system (AIS) and low-pressure injection system (LPIS). Besides, reasonably manually opening the steam generators (SGs) SVs while keeping the auxiliary feedwater work also helped to depressurize the RCS and prevent the severe accident. Both of the two mitigation measures successfully prevented the core from complete melt, but the latter one is preferable to the former one provided no steam generator tube rupture took place.
