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Division Spotlight
Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
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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June 2025
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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.
Adam Rau, James Turso (Penn State)
Proceedings | Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control, and Human-Machine Interface Technolgies (NPIC&HMIT 2019) | Orlando, FL, February 9-14, 2019 | Pages 1352-1360
Maintaining system stability is an important task for operators of nuclear reactors. Automatic control can be a valuable tool in achieving this, however many modern control methods require a model of the system. These models may not account for changes in system parameters resulting from continued use or different operating points. Robust control techniques can account for such uncertainties, guaranteeing stability provided that plant parameters and dynamics remain within specified uncertainty bounds. The present work applies robust control methods to design a controller for the Penn State Breazeale Reactor (PSBR). The impact of wear on the control rod drive mechanism and changes resulting from different reactor power set points are considered. A Simulink model of the PSBR from [1] was linearized and simplified for the purpose of controller design. The model uses the normalized point-kinetics equations and core-averaged thermal-hydraulics. H? control synthesis methods were used to accommodate changes in power level and wear in the control rod drive mechanisms. System stability was verified on a Simulink model, and controller performance was compared to a proportional controller.