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        <title>Frontiers in Nuclear Engineering | Nuclear Safety section | New and Recent Articles</title>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nuclear-engineering/sections/nuclear-safety</link>
        <description>RSS Feed for Nuclear Safety section in the Frontiers in Nuclear Engineering journal | New and Recent Articles</description>
        <language>en-us</language>
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        <pubDate>2026-05-13T13:57:59.663+00:00</pubDate>
        <ttl>60</ttl>
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        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnuen.2026.1790523</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnuen.2026.1790523</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Advanced modeling and management strategies for nuclear and radiological incidents: from decision support to adaptive governance]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-03-13T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Review</category>
        <author>Petre Cornel Min</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Nuclear and radiological emergency preparedness and response (EPR) including decision-support systems and emergency management frameworks operate at the intersection of advanced technical modelling, organizational processes, human decision-making, and societal dynamics. This review is based on a critical synthesis of the scientific and institutional literature addressing dispersion modelling, decision-support systems, emergency management frameworks, and large-scale exercise practice in nuclear and radiological emergencies. By examining how modelling outputs are generated, interpreted, and operationalized across preparedness and response contexts, the review identifies persistent gaps between analytical capabilities and real-world decision-making under uncertainty, time pressure, and multi-actor coordination. The analysis reveals that while significant progress has been achieved in modelling and computational tools, their integration into adaptive management and governance structures remains limited. Existing decision-support approaches often emphasize predefined scenarios and procedural compliance, offering limited support for exploratory reasoning and trade-off analysis in complex and evolving emergencies. Building on these findings, the review advances the concept of Hybrid Emergency Operations Centers (Hybrid EOCs) as an integrative operational and governance framework that connects modelling, decision-support, organizational workflows, and human-in-the-loop decision-making. Rather than prescribing optimal decisions, the proposed approach positions advanced modelling to structure decision spaces, enhance transparency, and support adaptive judgement within complex emergency response ecosystems.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnuen.2025.1714098</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnuen.2025.1714098</link>
        <title><![CDATA[An ensemble data-driven method for fault detection and diagnosis of digital control systems in nuclear power plants]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-01-08T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Baimao Lei</author><author>Bohao Tian</author><author>Yingrong Yao</author><author>Chenyu Jiang</author><author>Jun Yang</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) is essential for maintaining safety and preventing hazardous situations in industrial process control. Effective fault diagnosis allows for the timely detection and correction of anomalies, preventing potential disruptions and maintaining optimal performance. In the paper, we present a unified framework for fault detection and diagnosis by combining the real-time sensitivity of the moving window particle filtering (PF) with the diagnostic precision of the generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT). Within the framework, the particle filtering is integrated to provide accurate real-time state monitoring and prediction in scenarios with nonlinear digital control system dynamics and non-Gaussian noise. The moving window (MW) is adopted to identify anomalous patterns within a stream of data by focusing on a fixed-size segment that moves across the data. The GLRT is then used to isolate the specific type of fault that has occurred based on the observed data and the different fault hypotheses and models. The method is demonstrated with a digital U-shaped tube steam generator water level control system in pressurized water reactor nuclear power plants. Comparative studies have also been conducted with LSTM network to demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed PF-based MW-GLRT method. The demonstration results show that the proposed PF-based MW-GLRT framework can provide a robust and efficient solution for identifying and characterizing faults in complex digital control systems.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnuen.2025.1736634</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnuen.2025.1736634</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Correction: An entropy-based debiasing approach to quantifying experimental coverage for novel applications of interest in the nuclear community]]></title>
        <pubdate>2025-12-05T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Correction</category>
        <author>Arvind Sundaram</author><author>Shiming Yin</author><author>Ugur Mertyurek</author><author>Hany Abdel-Khalik</author>
        <description></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnuen.2025.1692182</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnuen.2025.1692182</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Ensembles of physics-enhanced neural networks for the prediction of critical heat flux in nuclear reactors and the quantification of its uncertainty]]></title>
        <pubdate>2025-12-01T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Nicola Pedroni</author>
        <description><![CDATA[The Critical Heat Flux (CHF) is a physical phenomenon that may cause the deterioration of the heat transfer in the core of nuclear reactors, potentially leading to core damage. Its accurate prediction is therefore a crucial issue in nuclear reactor safety. To this aim, various empirical and mechanistic models have been proposed to estimate the CHF across various flow regimes and conditions, which however present some drawbacks: i) data scarcity in some parts of the input domain; ii) no information about prediction uncertainties; iii) difficult explainability and interpretability of the results. To address these issues, ensembles of Physics-Enhanced Neural Networks (PENNs) are considered to predict the CHF as a function of relevant physical input variables (e.g., pipe heated length and diameter, pressure, mass flux, outlet quality). Two different frameworks to integrate physics and data-driven NN-based strategies are here compared for the first time, to the best of the author’s knowledge. In the first, fixed-structure (prior) baseline models (i.e., the Groeneveld Look-Up Table-LUT and the mechanistic Liu model) are constructed relying on the existing knowledge on the physical phenomenon of interest, which serves as a reference solution; then, NN ensembles are employed to capture unknown, unexplored information from the mismatch (i.e., the residuals) between the real CHF values and the estimates produced by the knowledge-based models. In the second, the LUT and the mechanistic Liu model are directly implemented in the NN loss function for effective (physics- and data-driven) ensemble training. A case study is carried out with an extensive CHF database (published by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission with measurements in vertical uniformly-heated water-cooled cylindrical tubes) to demonstrate: i) the improved performance of the PENN-based approaches as compared to traditional knowledge-based models; ii) the PENN superior generalization capabilities over standalone data-driven NNs in the presence of small-sized datasets (i.e., a few tens or hundreds points); iii) the possibility to build robustness in the CHF predictions by bootstrap and PENN weights random reinitialization for quantifying uncertainty and estimating prediction intervals.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnuen.2025.1675308</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnuen.2025.1675308</link>
        <title><![CDATA[An entropy-based debiasing approach to quantifying experimental coverage for novel applications of interest in the nuclear community]]></title>
        <pubdate>2025-10-23T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Arvind Sundaram</author><author>Shiming Yin</author><author>Ugur Mertyurek</author><author>Hany Abdel-Khalik</author>
        <description><![CDATA[This manuscript proposes a novel information-theoretic approach to the quantification of experimental relevance, i.e., coverage, to achieve optimal data assimilation results for nuclear engineering applications. Specifically, this work posits the need for a new metric, called coverage (qC) of an application’s quantity of interest, i.e., eigenvalue or power peaking for an advanced reactor concept, defined herein as the theoretically maximum achievable reduction in the quantity’s uncertainty given measurements from a pool of experiments in a manner that is independent of the data assimilation procedure employed. Currently, reduction in a quantity’s uncertainty is strongly biased by the underlying assumptions of the assimilation procedure to account for the under-determined nature of such problems and the similarity criterion employed to identify relevant experiments. To address this challenge, this work has developed a coverage metric, qC, based on mutual information, which establishes a new conceptual framework for assessing coverage, one that is independent of the model parameters and responses degree of variations in both the experimental and application domains, i.e., linear vs non-linear, and their prior uncertainty distributions, i.e., Gaussian vs. non-Gaussian. The qC is an entropic measure capable of addressing coverage for general nonlinear problems with non-Gaussian uncertainties and inclusive of the measurement uncertainties from multiple experiments. Numerical experiments from manufactured analytical problems as well as a set of benchmarks from the ICSBEP handbook are employed to demonstrate its theoretical and practical performance as compared to the ck-based experiment selection methodology, commonly employed in the neutronic community. The manuscript then employs other well-known adaptations to existing data assimilation methodologies for nonlinear and non-Gaussian problems capable of achieving the coverage posited by qC.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnuen.2025.1617991</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnuen.2025.1617991</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Study of the deposition and resuspension phase of aerosol particles in a straight test pipe]]></title>
        <pubdate>2025-09-05T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Manish Kumar</author><author>Manish Joshi</author><author>Anubhav Kumar Dwivedi</author><author>Sidyant Kumar</author><author>T. Saud</author><author>Arshad Khan</author><author>Gaurav Mishra</author><author>Nandan Saha</author><author>Sunil Ganju</author><author>S. N. Tripathi</author><author>B. K. Sapra</author>
        <description><![CDATA[The study of the transport and deposition characteristics of aerosol particles in test sections is a component of the probabilistic safety assessment of nuclear reactors under severe accident scenarios. The deposited particles may become resuspended under favorable conditions, thus affecting the source term estimates. The objective of the present study was to perform experiments on a straight test pipe section 4 m long under deposition and resuspension phases. Zinc oxide metal particles generated from a plasma torch aerosol generator (PTAG) were used as the test aerosols. Deposition phase experiments were performed at a total carrier gas flow rate of 180 Lmin-1, whereas the flow was increased to 1265 Lmin-1 for the resuspension phase. Thermophoresis as an effect of PTAG enthalpy-governed temperature gradients was seen to dominate the deposition phase. The effects of varying Reynold numbers in different volume sections were reflected in a higher resuspended-to-deposited-mass-ratio in the downstream direction. A profile of deposited and resuspended masses was interpreted for the resuspension time of 20 min. Experimentally obtained characteristics were also compared with numerical results from simulations performed with the SOPHAEROS module of the Accidental Source Term Evaluation Code (ASTEC). This study, performed at the National Aerosol Facility (NAF), Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, indicates the need of more research on aerosol resuspension effects as this impacts the estimation accuracy of the source term.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnuen.2025.1599740</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnuen.2025.1599740</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Experimental insights into the formation and characterization of iodine oxide aerosols]]></title>
        <pubdate>2025-08-05T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author> Mariam</author><author>Manish Joshi</author><author>Amruta Nakhwa</author><author>Pallavi Khandare</author><author>Samanta Soumen</author><author>Arshad Khan</author><author>B. K. Sapra</author>
        <description><![CDATA[IntroductionA significant quantity of radioactive iodine is expected to be released following severe nuclear reactor accidents. Recent studies have shown that among various species expected, iodine oxides (IxOy) are less explored but play a crucial role in nuclear safety assessments due to their impact on source term evaluation. Therefore, this study was designed to generate and characterize iodine oxides in a laboratory scale setup.MethodsExperiments were conducted at room temperature and ambient relative humidity using an I2 concentration of ∼1 ppm and an O3 concentration of ∼30 ppm inside a controlled chamber. The reaction kinetics were determined by continuously monitoring O3 concentration. While many previous studies have relied on the radioactive iodine tracers and gamma spectroscopy, this study adopts an alternative approach by analysing ozone decay as a proxy for iodine oxidation. The generated iodine oxide aerosols were characterized for their physical and chemical properties. Impactors and gross samplers were used to collect aerosols, giving particle mass size distribution and total mass concentration, respectively. Particle morphology and chemical composition were determined using a scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS).Results and discussionThe reaction kinetics showed that ozone decay followed first-order kinetics with a high correlation (R2 > 0.99). The particles were found to have I2O5 chemical species with varied shapes, from small porous cloud-like structures to large rod-shaped particles. The findings provide valuable insights into iodine oxidation under environmentally relevant conditions, bridging knowledge gaps in source term estimation and contributing to the enhancement of accuracy of the modeling codes for nuclear safety applications.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnuen.2025.1579828</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnuen.2025.1579828</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Mechanistic assessment of aerosol transport in SFR cover gas space post HCDA conditions]]></title>
        <pubdate>2025-05-23T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Parthkumar Rajendrabhai Patel</author><author>Amit Kumar</author><author>A. John Arul</author>
        <description><![CDATA[With the growing emphasis on safety in next-generation reactors, along with the necessity to practically eliminate large doses to the public from severe accidents, a mechanistic assessment of such accidents becomes very important problem. The present manuscript attempts to address the source term assessment, focusing on the release behaviour of the aerosol from the roof-slab leak paths post-Core Disruptive Accident (CDA) conditions (known as interface source term or cover gas source term). Following a CDA, after possible Na leak through the gap between rotating plugs and major components, the cover gas space could be in contact with the containment atmosphere through these open leak paths. Additionally, the impact of sodium slug to roof-slab could have caused roof-slab cooling line failure. The present study assesses the release behaviour of the aerosols from the roof-slab leak paths, with respect to aerosol size under various cases of roof-slab cooling line failure. Sodium aerosols are used as representative aerosols for studying the radionuclide (RN) aerosol release behaviour. The assessment indicates that most of the aerosol leaking from roof-slab leak paths are of the diameter between 5 and 25 μm, with leak rates peaking in the range of 17–23 μm. Furthermore, with respect to air ingress concern, it is observed that the air ingress from the containment atmosphere was found only in the annular leak paths and it is not mixing into cover gas. However, this ingress was limited to the annular leak path only. It is seen that higher leak rates are observed in the case of complete failure of the roof-slab cooling system. Hence, it is important to maintain the roof-slab bottom plate temperatures within limits to avoid larger aerosol leak rates.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnuen.2025.1567507</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnuen.2025.1567507</link>
        <title><![CDATA[An experimental study of iodine retention in Ag-zeolites at high humidity conditions]]></title>
        <pubdate>2025-04-28T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Terttaliisa Lind</author><author>Fredrik Espegren</author><author>Detlef Suckow</author>
        <description><![CDATA[During severe accidents in nuclear power plants, filtered containment venting system is foreseen to be employed once the containment pressure increases above a pre-set value called venting pressure. Ag-zeolite filters are applied in filtered containment venting systems to retain iodine and organic iodides in the gas phase. In this work, the applicability of Ag-zeolites to not only retain gas phase iodine species, but to also catalyze hydrogen recombination has been experimentally investigated under challenging high humidity conditions. Tests were performed in the medium-scale facility using two Ag-zeolites, one of them designed to both retain gas phase iodine species and recombine hydrogen, the other one designed to only retain gas phase iodine species. Experiments studied the effect of residence time and the carrier gas mixture (steam, N2 or air) on the retention of organic iodine, represented in the tests by CH3I, and hydrogen recombination rate with the two Ag-zeolites. The experiments were carried out under the conditions expected in the containment during severe accidents, however, considering practical limitations. The effects of pressure and the presence of contaminant gases (CO, N2O) were investigated in additional tests not included in this study. The steam fraction in the tests varied between 32% and 90%, air fraction was 0%, 5% or 19%, and hydrogen content either 2.5% or 5%. Nitrogen made up the balance for the gas atmosphere. Gas residence time in the zeolite bed was either 100 m or 200 m. Both zeolites showed high retention of CH3I under all the gas atmospheres as long as the residence time in the reaction chamber was 200 m. CH3I retention was lower when the residence time was reduced to 100 m. Hydrogen recombination was more dependent on the gas atmosphere, as expected. The effect of the gas atmosphere on the hydrogen recombination and retention is discussed.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnuen.2024.1381737</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnuen.2024.1381737</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Research on active and passive schemes for safety improvement of nuclear energy hydrogen production system]]></title>
        <pubdate>2024-04-11T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Qunxiang Gao</author><author>Qi Sun</author><author>Ping Zhang</author><author>Gang Zhao</author><author>Wei Peng</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Nuclear hydrogen production has the advantages of large-scale and low carbon emissions, and is expected to play an active role in the energy transition process. However, the storage and transportation of hydrogen pose potential risks of leakage and diffusion when connected to high-pressure hydrogen storage tanks and pipelines. To address this concern, this study focused on designing three distinct safety improvement schemes tailored for potential hydrogen leakage accidents. These schemes encompassed a passively distributed arrangement of obstacles (Scheme 1), a passively centralized arrangement of obstacles (Scheme 2), and an active fan array blowing (Scheme 3). Numerical simulation methods were applied on extensive spatial scales for relevant calculations. The results revealed that all three schemes effectively reduced the diffusion distance of combustible hydrogen. Specifically, at lower ambient wind speeds, Scheme 1, Scheme 2, and Scheme 3 achieved the shortest diffusion distances of 123 m, 56 m, and 46 m, respectively. Meanwhile, at higher ambient wind speeds, the corresponding distances were 282 m, 100 m, and 79 m. These results collectively offer valuable insights to mitigate the risk of leakage accidents in nuclear hydrogen production systems.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnuen.2023.1346555</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnuen.2023.1346555</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Advancing nuclear safety]]></title>
        <pubdate>2024-01-04T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Specialty Grand Challenge</category>
        <author>Enrico Zio</author>
        <description></description>
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