Although there have been some severe nuclear accidents such as Three Mile Island (USA), Chernobyl (Ukraine) and Fukushima (Japan), nuclear fission energy is still a source of clean energy that can substitute for fossil fuels in a centralized way and in a great amount with commercial availability and economic competitiveness. Since the pressurized water reactor (PWR) is the most widely used nucl...

} The mechanistic smeared cracking model was extended from two to three dimensions (page 2). } Subcontinuum molecular dynamics simulations were used to investigate oxide fuel grain boundary fractures during reactor transients (page 2). } An improved model of bubble and grain boundary interaction was developed (page 2). } Improved descriptions of fission-gas/grain boundary interactions and clust...

The Vienna TRIGA Mark II reactor was modelled by means of the Serpent-2 Monte Carlo burnup calculation code. The purpose of the modelling is the determination of core critical parameters and of nuclear fuel composition time evolution. This paper presents the Serpent-2 reactor model validation process carried out during the last year. Taking into account the irradiation history, the fuel composi...

In nuclear fission, a delayed neutron is a neutron emitted by one of the fission products any time from a few milliseconds to a few minutes after the fission event. The counts of delayed neutrons constitute a time series sequence. The analysis of such time series can prove to be very significant for purpose of predictive maintenance in nuclear power plants. In this paper we aim to identify anom...

Two methods were elaborated for calculation of the kinetic effects caused by the photo-neutrons emitted in beryllium reflector of the VVRSZM type research reactor of KFKI-AEKI. The first simplified point kinetic model assumes that the importance of photo-neutrons is the same as that for the neutrons originated from the fission events. The point kinetic parameters were calculated by using the mo...

High level Liquid Waste (HLW) is generated during the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel which is used to recover uranium and plutonium. More than 99% of the radioactivity generated during the burning of nuclear fuel in the reactor is present in HLW. For the efficient management of HLW either by vitrification in the suitable borosilicate glass matrix, or partitioning and transmutation (P&T) of ...

The effect of variation in thermal conductivity of light water reactor fuel elements on core response during loss-of-coolant accident scenarios is examined. Initially, a simplified numerical analysis is utilized to determine the time scales associated with dissipation of stored energy from the fuel into the coolant once the fission reaction is stopped. The analysis is then followed by full reac...

Since the end of 1989, ECN renewed its interest in incineration of transuranium elements and fission products. With respect to the transmutation of minor actinides ECN was requested by the clutch government to start a study of a scenario based upon thermal reactors and to work on incineration by means of new fast reactor designs. There are also plans for a study on the possible use of accelerat...

In Japan, since plutonium is to be used as a nuclear fuel material under the nuclear energy policy, the objective of partitioning and transmutation (P&T) is oriented to removal and transmutation of mainly MA and long-lived fission products. Under the OMEGA (option making of extra gain from actinides and fission products transmutation) programme, on the basis of the double-strata fuel cycle conc...