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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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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PR: American Nuclear Society welcomes Senate confirmation of Ted Garrish as the DOE’s nuclear energy secretary
Washington, D.C. — The American Nuclear Society (ANS) applauds the U.S. Senate's confirmation of Theodore “Ted” Garrish as Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
“On behalf of over 11,000 professionals in the fields of nuclear science and technology, the American Nuclear Society congratulates Mr. Garrish on being confirmed by the Senate to once again lead the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy,” said ANS President H.M. "Hash" Hashemian.
Robby Christian, Hyun Gook Kang (RPI)
Proceedings | Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control, and Human-Machine Interface Technolgies (NPIC&HMIT 2019) | Orlando, FL, February 9-14, 2019 | Pages 1-9
Operating criteria for Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS) has been prescribed to maintain integrity of Zr-based fuel assemblies during a Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA). With new Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) designs planned to replace current nuclear fuels, the ECCS criteria should be re-configured properly. This paper proposes a risk-informed approach to establishing the ECCS criteria for Silicon Carbide (SiC) cladding ATF. SiC failure modes were categorized into deterministic and stochastic. A methodology to calculate SiC stochastic tensile fracture probability was outlined. The cladding functional failure probability was formulated from the combination of fractures in each layer of SiC clad. ECCS performance, which includes mass flow rate and actuation timing of high and low pressure active injection, were varied to investigate clad failures. The SiC clad failure probability was found in the order of 1E-15 when it replaced Zr-clad while keeping ECCS criteria the same. A deterministic clad failure occurred when ECCS actuation exceeds 936 seconds after a large break LOCA, or when the ECCS mass flow rate was less than 4% of its designed capacity. When the likelihood of ECCS to perform beyond this criteria was less than 7E-4, the overall risk from deterministic and stochastic failures was less than ECCS risk in cooling Zr-clad of 1E-3. Results suggested that ECCS criteria for SiC may be relaxed compared to the criteria for Zr-clad. This relaxation may provide reductions in operational and maintenance costs.