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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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2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
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Smarter waste strategies: Helping deliver on the promise of advanced nuclear
At COP28, held in Dubai in 2023, a clear consensus emerged: Nuclear energy must be a cornerstone of the global clean energy transition. With electricity demand projected to soar as we decarbonize not just power but also industry, transport, and heat, the case for new nuclear is compelling. More than 20 countries committed to tripling global nuclear capacity by 2050. In the United States alone, the Department of Energy forecasts that the country’s current nuclear capacity could more than triple, adding 200 GW of new nuclear to the existing 95 GW by mid-century.
Takumi Uezono, Toru Motoya, Katsunobu Natori, Satoshi Nishikawa, Keisuke Yamamoto, Tomokazu Takahashi, Shohei Nakamura, Goro Suzuki (Hitachi)
Proceedings | Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control, and Human-Machine Interface Technolgies (NPIC&HMIT 2019) | Orlando, FL, February 9-14, 2019 | Pages 645-652
We propose a design and verification process for a hardware-resource-efficient FPGA-based functional safety controller. In order to reduce the hardware resources consumed by the NPP application, we developed a resource-sharing calculation architecture on the FPGA. Our designed FPGA-based controller utilizing our developed architecture is hard-wired, but can operate another function by replacing contents in the calculation control memory. Thus, our developed controller achieves both safety and flexibility. In addition, a data conversion tool from NPP application to calculation control data for our developed architecture is also developed. In the verification step, output data from our developed tool is verified by a process where that calculation control data is reversely-converted to the NPP application and checked whether it is equivalent with the original NPP application by the logical equivalence verification method. Our verification process makes it possible to apply formal verification method and achieve the SIL 4 compliant verification process for the FPGA-based controller for Class 1 I&C systems . Our proposed design and verification process was assessed by TÜV Rheinland and accepted as SIL 4 compliant.