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Division Spotlight
Young Members Group
The Young Members Group works to encourage and enable all young professional members to be actively involved in the efforts and endeavors of the Society at all levels (Professional Divisions, ANS Governance, Local Sections, etc.) as they transition from the role of a student to the role of a professional. It sponsors non-technical workshops and meetings that provide professional development and networking opportunities for young professionals, collaborates with other Divisions and Groups in developing technical and non-technical content for topical and national meetings, encourages its members to participate in the activities of the Groups and Divisions that are closely related to their professional interests as well as in their local sections, introduces young members to the rules and governance structure of the Society, and nominates young professionals for awards and leadership opportunities available to members.
Meeting Spotlight
2027 ANS Winter Conference and Expo
October 31–November 4, 2027
Washington, DC|The Westin Washington, DC 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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Latest News
Supreme Court rules against Texas in interim storage case
The Supreme Court voted 6–3 against Texas and a group of landowners today in a case involving the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s licensing of a consolidated interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, reversing a decision by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to grant the state and landowners Fasken Land and Minerals (Fasken) standing to challenge the license.
G. D. Latimer, W. R. Marcum (Oregon State Univ), W. F. Jones (INL)
Proceedings | Advances in Thermal Hydraulics 2018 | Orlando, FL, November 11-15, 2018 | Pages 777-788
In this study, two pool blowdown experiments were conducted on simulated PWR fuel rods filled with spherical lead pellets as a surrogate fuel having similar density to UO2. These experiments were performed at conditions similar to those expected during the second heatup phase of a loss-of-coolant accident in a conventional light water reactor. The rods were pressurized with a small volume of nitrogen gas at 4.0 MPa to rapidly expel the surrogate fuel particles through a pre-fabricated rupture in the rod. Subsequent dispersion of the particles was captured with a high-speed camera at an acquisition rate of 800 frames per second in order to properly record the transient at a resolved time scale. Initial images revealed contrasting mechanical behavior in the case of a single rod when compared to that in a representative 5x5 section of a fuel bundle. Pressure history on each experiment showed that there is not a significant difference in the depressurization rates of rods with or without the surrogate fuel. Selected particles were tracked in each experiment and overlaid to visualize the differences in the effective range. For the case of the bundle, most of the particles are deposited in the adjacent subchannels, while for the single rod, the mean free path is much longer. Calculated particle displacement and velocity trajectories are compared against theoretical models based on a force balance of a single particle, and show good agreement, with possible errors arising in the transient nature of the drag coefficient, and uncertainties in particle mass.