ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
Latest Magazine Issues
Sep 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
October 2025
Nuclear Technology
September 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Shifting the paradigm of supply chain
Chad Wolf
When I began my nuclear career, I was coached up in the nuclear energy culture of the day to “run silent, run deep,” a mindset rooted in the U.S. Navy’s submarine philosophy. That was the norm—until Fukushima.
The nuclear renaissance that many had envisioned hit a wall. The focus shifted from expansion to survival. Many utility communications efforts pivoted from silence to broadcast, showcasing nuclear energy’s elegance and reliability. Nevertheless, despite being clean baseload 24/7 power that delivered a 90 percent capacity factor or higher, nuclear energy was painted as risky and expensive (alongside energy policies and incentives that favored renewables).
Economics became a driving force threatening to shutter nuclear power. The Delivering the Nuclear Promise initiative launched in 2015 challenged the industry to sustain high performance yet cut costs by up to 30 percent.
L. J. Peacock, C. D. Bentley, N. Bazin, E. Stott, C. Macqueen
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 59 | Number 1 | January 2011 | Pages 190-193
Technical Paper | Nineteenth Target Fabrication Meeting | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A11523
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper describes the density and diameter measurements of silica aerogel microspheres. The aerogel samples were fabricated in the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) Porous Structures Laboratory and by General Atomics. The diameters and densities of the aerogel samples were initially calculated from metrology carried out in the Porous Structures Laboratory. Radiography images of the samples were produced using the Manson soft-X-ray source at AWE from which the diameters and densities of the spheres could be inferred after image digitization.The two different measurement methods are compared, and the results are presented along with statistical analysis showing how well the results corroborate with each other; best practices are established for future measurements and analysis.
