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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
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver 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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May 2025
Latest News
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
Joseph Litrel, Donna Post. Guillen (INL), Michael McKellar (Univ of Idaho)
Proceedings | Advances in Thermal Hydraulics 2018 | Orlando, FL, November 11-15, 2018 | Pages 714-728
Microreactors can be used to provide electrical power up to 10 MWe for emergency situations, remote areas, or military applications. Combined cycles comprised of an air Brayton topping cycle and an Organic Rankine bottoming cycle were evaluated in HYSYS using different working fluids in the bottoming cycle and in different ambient environments. The results indicate that a bottoming ORC can increase the thermal efficiency of the air Brayton cycle from 35.8 % up to 40.2 %. Exergy analysis was also performed on the combined cycle along with a simple validation of HYSYS on the bottoming cycle. The exergy analysis shows that of available work, most is lost at the reactor or turned into work at the topping cycle. A rudimentary capital cost estimate shows that the addition of a bottoming cycle is not prohibitively expensive.