AMERICAN NUCLEAR SOCIETY
NUCLEAR CRITICALITY SAFETY DIVISION NEWSLETTER

MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR

The Nuclear Criticality Safety Division (NCSD) has an enviable reputation of strong member support, most visible in our attendance at technical sessions during national ANS meetings, Division topical meetings, and professional workshops sponsored by NCSD. Our reputation is enhanced within the Society by the support some NCSD members provide to ANS initiatives and committees. To maintain this member support we must continue our efforts to identify and satisfy member interests and needs. The institutional efforts to meet this challenge continue to be performed by committees.

Program Committee. This committee organizes NCSD technical sessions at national ANS meetings, provides criticality safety expertise for technical review of summaries submitted to national ANS meetings, sponsors and oversees Division topical meetings, sponsors code tutorials and student paper competitions, and coordinates with NCSD-sponsored workshops and criticality-related technical programs sponsored by other Divisions or organizations. The Program Committee meets from 2 to 4 p.m. on the Sunday of every ANS Annual and Winter Meeting. All NCSD members are welcome to attend and participate in these meetings.

Education Committee. This committee works in cooperation with the ANS Professional Development Committee to organize and produce relevant workshops, and identifies and supports other education or training needs.

Industrial Relations Committee. The purpose of this committee is to foster open communications about criticality safety issues among the various sectors: the Department of Energy (DOE), DOE contractors, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), NRC licensees, and other private support organizations.

Publications and Communications Committee. This committee prepares the Division newsletter and fosters communication between members.

Awards Committee. This committee sponsors Best Paper Awards and activities to recognize the contributions and support of our members.

Membership Committee. This committee works to distribute information about the Division and its functions to potential members, assists new members in becoming involved, and identifies areas that should be improved to attract and keep members.

Finance Committee. This committee prepares the Division budget and requests payments for Division expenses.

Criticality Safety Standards Subcommittee, ANS-8. ANS-8 is sponsored by NCSD and operates under the auspices of the ANSI-N16 committee. This subcommittee works to develop and maintain national consensus standards that identify minimum requirements to ensure criticality safety in activities outside nuclear reactors.

The Division also works to develop professional positions on national programs that offer community-wide benefits. Such activities have included a support letter which contributed to a favorable decision for a U.S. community-wide criticality training program at the Los Alamos Critical Assembly Facility and another in-progress letter to encourage the DOE to maintain and enhance programs required for assured capability to predict critical conditions.

Initiatives under consideration by the Division are (1) Internet E-mail groups to improve communications among members and perhaps reduce newsletter costs, (2) an International Relations Committee to ensure issues and concerns of our non-U.S. members are addressed, and (3) a Student Concerns Committee or Subcommittee to ensure that our student members are adequately represented and can be included in a manner compatible with their education goals and schedules.

NCSD is a voice for you. Your input and support are needed. If you would like to participate in any of the Division activities or if you have comments or questions, please contact the appropriate committee chair (see front page and below), a Division officer, and/or attend the Division’s Executive Committee meetings that are held from 4 to 6 p.m. on the Sunday of every ANS Annual and Winter Meeting. Join us in deciding the future of our Division. Your active participation in the Division activities are welcome.

COMMUNICATIONS INFORMATION

Our division chair has been busy organizing the division and expanding the lines of communication for all. Below is a list of the division officers, executive committee members, and committee chairs along with their telephone number, facsimile number, and electronic mail address. Mail addresses could also be gathered and provided if there is a need for this information. If you have any questions about the division activities or wish to offer comments or suggestions, the persons on this list are the people with whom to initiate contact.

MESSAGE FROM THE EDITOR

There is concern around the country as companies are decreasing the number of people who work for them. Budgets are tight and the members have reduced opportunity to attend meetings and share in exchange of information and ideas. The ANS is also experiencing some reduction of participation, but the NCSD is maintaining its membership of dedicated personnel. Some divisions are trying to reorganize and amend their charters to include the field in which the NCSD has been extremely active. The reduced participation across ANS continues to raise the possibility of whether only one national meeting a year would be preferable to the two we now have. Please consider what effect this would have on your professional life. We continue to schedule an ANS topical meeting on nuclear criticality safety every four years, and there is an international meeting every four years. The latter two have been arranged so that there are two years between them. If the ANS decides to have only one meeting a year, there might be some consideration for having additional topical meetings.

We can be absolutely certain that life will not remain the same. How we meet our uncertainties will be a measure of how successful we shall be in the future. We challenge you to become the best professional that you can and, along the way, to help your co-worker also achieve a measure of success that would not otherwise be possible. Safe efficient operation with fissile material continues to be our primary goal. Keep up the good work and let your neighbors and friends know that you are proud of the safety record of our industry.

We have great expectations for ourselves and our future. The time will come when people around the world will have confidence that their energy needs can be best met by the sustainable source of nuclear reactor fuel. Keep the faith.

AWARDS COMMITTEE
Paul Felsher

The NCSD announces and congratulates the winners of the best paper award for the last Annual Meeting in Reno, Nevada. The authors and winning paper were:

Tim E. Valentine, John T. Mihalczo, W. T. King, and Ed D. Blakeman for the paper "Neutron Multiplication Factor and Calculational Bias from 252Cf-Source-Driven Frequency Analysis Measurements with Subcritical Arrays of PWR Fuel Pins." The paper was presented by Tim Valentine.

PROGRAM COMMITTEE
Dave Lindenschmidt

ENS/ANS International Meeting, Washington, D. C. - November 10-14, 1996

Technical sessions organized by NCSD for this meeting include:

• Data and Analysis in NCS - Monday pm
• Poster Session on Standards for NCS Practice - Tuesday am
• Interpretation and Use of National and International Standards - Tuesday pm
• NCS Issues in Environmental Management and Restoration - Tuesday pm (DD&R Embedded Topical)
• NCS Issues Related to Fissile Material Disposition - Wednesday am (first half of split session)
• Regulatory Aspects of NCS, The European Perspective - Wednesday am (second half of split session)
• Regulatory Aspects of NCS, The U.S. Perspective - Wednesday pm

The list of papers for each session is available in the preliminary program distributed from ANS Headquarters.

Call for Summaries: 1997 ANS Annual Meeting, Orlando, Florida

The NCSD Program Committee would appreciate your input and help in formulating high-quality technical sessions for this annual meeting. Abstracts that describe the NCSD-sponsored technical sessions included in the Call for Papers (available in November) are provided below. Please contact the session organizer or Dave Lindenschmidt if you have an idea for a topic that should be covered, if you want to recommend a potential author, or if you wish to submit a summary yourself. Summaries for the 1997 Annual Meeting will be due in January.

NCS Professional—Training and Qualification Programs

Recent events such as the issuance of the Department of Energy Order 5480.20A have raised interest in reviewing the professional development, training, and qualification programs for nuclear criticality safety engineers and professionals around the country. Papers will explore the scope and technical content of these programs with particular emphasis on how well these programs meet requirements set by applicable DOE, NRC, and other regulatory entities. Contacts: Dennis Tollefson (423-574-9877) or Sean Monahan (505-665-2816).

Methods to Establish Bias and Uncertainty in Code Validation

All nuclear criticality safety programs utilize criticality safety codes for calculating k-eff under normal and abnormal conditions for a variety of operational processes. Some programs have used a broad-based validation—using an analysis of a large number of critical experiments covering the range of applicable code options and cross sections to be used in calculations. Others have applied validation on a case-specific basis. This session solicits papers on all methods used to establish the bias and uncertainty applied to nuclear criticality safety codes. Contact: Donna D'Aquila (614-424-4076).

Use of NDA in Assuring Criticality Safety

With many nuclear facilities going into an environmental restoration mode, the need to enhance and provide additional information on holdup material is more evident. Process knowledge and operational experience have been relied on in the past. Now, NDA techniques are providing additional assurance in determining fissile material compositions in a variety of configurations. This session will emphasize NDA techniques in use and actual case studies where NDA has been utilized in nuclear criticality safety. Contacts: Ron Marble (423-574-6059) or Tim Valentine (423-574-5612).

Comparison Studies of NCS Analytical Methods

A variety of neutral-particle transport methods, both stochastic and deterministic, are applied in NCS analyses for out-of-reactor systems. This session provides a forum for presentation on comparative studies involving two or more major code systems or methodologies. Of interest are comparative studies that test and compare the numerical methods and physics models on realistic systems. Contact: Mike Westfall (423-574-5267).

Use of Operating Conditions and Surveillance in Evaluation of Nuclear Criticality Margin of Safety

An emerging practice among NRC nonreactor licensees with regard to determining realistic margins of safety in their NCS Evaluations is to take credit for legitimate process characteristics and limitations and reliable process controls. Criticality safety practitioners are no longer assuming worst-case (optimum) conditions for controlled parameters in their analyses. Rather, realistic assumptions are being claimed for such variables as material configuration in unconfined areas, material accumulation based on actual mass flow rate, maximum credible density for well-defined processes, and reflection around suspended vessels and containers. This session provides an opportunity to demonstrate and discuss the benefits that are realized when including realistic conditions in their bounding assumptions. Contact: Norman Kent (803-776-2610 x3552).

Data and Analysis for Criticality Safety

This general session is for summaries contributed to NCSD that are not pertinent to the planned special sessions. You are encouraged to submit papers even though they may be on a topic which is not one of the planned sessions. Contact: Dave Lindenschmidt (614-424-7514 or fax 513-779-6621).

IN MEMORIAM

Richard L. (Dick) Newvahner, who retired from the Nuclear Criticality Safety Department at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PORTS) in November 1994, passed away on July 11, 1996. Dick began his career at PORTS in the plant laboratory in 1955. In 1965, he began his work in nuclear criticality safety. Dick’s initial contribution to the group was in assisting in the development of the first methods for locating and quantifying uranium deposits in the vast lengths of cascade piping and numbers of cascade stages. Dick was the major PORTS NCS contributor to the Gas Centrifuge Enrichment Plant (GCEP) that was being built for deployment at PORTS in the early eighties. For the ten years preceding his retirement, he was actively involved in the Nuclear Criticality Safety Division. Following retirement, he consulted for Lockheed Martin at PORTS. Dick will be missed by the NCS community.

NCSD OFFICERS

Valerie Putman, Chair
Dennis Tollefson, V. Chair
Cecil Parks, Treasurer/Finance
Douglas Croucher, Secretary

Executive Committee

Francis Alcorn (99)
Warner Blyckert (98) - Publications/Newsletter
Michaele Brady (97)
Paul Felsher (97) - Awards/Honors
Adolf Garcia (98) - Education
Dave Heinrichs (98) - Membership
Burton Rothleder (97) - Govt/Industry Issues
Richard Taylor (99)
Peter Thorne (99)

Other

Richard Anderson - Division Representative Nominating
Dave Lindenschmidt - Program
Tom McLaughlin - ANS-8 Chair
John Schlesser - ANS-8 Secretary