In response to the nuclear industry desire extend burnup beyond current licensing practices, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) released a research information letter (RIL) that provides basis for analyzing fuel fragmentation, relocation, and dispersal (FFRD) in light-water reactors. Of five elements discussed, most ambiguous is significance of transient fission gas (FG) release (FGR) (tFGR...

Thermal hydraulic system codes are complex tools developed to estimate the transient behaviour of nuclear power plants (NPPs) during off-normal conditions. The evaluation of safety margins, the operator training, the optimization of the plant design and related emergency procedures are some of the major applications of these codes. Best estimate computer codes are used to calculate postulated a...

We locate the onset of oscillatory instability in the flow in a differentially heated cavity of aspect ratio 2 by computing a steady state and analyzing the stability of the system via eigenvalue approximation. We discuss the choosing of parameters for the Cayley transformation so that the calculation of selected eigenvalues of the transformed system will most reliably answer the question of st...