Frontiers in Nuclear Engineering | New and Recent Articles

This paper describes the deep geological repository concept considered by Nagra in support of its recent general licence application and the methodology used by Nagra to demonstrate its post-closure safety. The concept presented is for a deep geological repository for high-level waste (HLW) and for low- and intermediate-level waste (L/ILW) located in the Opalinus Clay host rock in Switzerland. Th…

This work reports on a pilot study for optimizing the design of a fast neutron irradiation experiment in a thermal neutron spectrum, specifically the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR). A fast and robust multi-objective optimization workflow that leverages Python-based open-source tools was developed and applied to the ATR to optimize experiment design and boost fast energy neutrons at a desired irradia…

Germany's nuclear phase-out is being increasingly questioned due to rising electricity demand, geopolitical insecurity, and industrial competitiveness concerns. In no small part, the rethinking comes from a growing recognition that, although renewable energy remains central to climate neutrality, Germany's renewable-heavy energy transition is insufficient to meet climate targets. In addition to t…

IntroductionShallow machine learning algorithms exhibit low efficiency in fault diagnosis under the conditions of small-sample and unlabeled data. To address this critical problem, this paper focuses on developing an effective fault diagnosis method suitable for cross-reactor-type scenarios, which is of great significance for improving the safety and operational level of nuclear power plants.Meth…

It is essential for the safety assessment of a repository to analyze the release and transport of radionuclides from the near-field to the geosphere and subsequently to the surface environment. A new model has been developed in COMSOL Multiphysics based on input data from the safety case for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel at Olkiluoto. Complex processes, for example, nuclide decay, material c…

In this study, we analyze the impact of transforming a discrete fracture network (DFN) model to an equivalent continuum model (ECM) on flow and solute transport characteristics. The analysis was conducted in a setting derived from – though simplified relative to – in-situ fracturing conditions at the Forsmark site. The geometrical structure of the DFN model considered is combined successively wit…