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
NNSA awards BWXT $1.5B defense fuels contract
The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration has awarded BWX Technologies a contract valued at $1.5 billion to build a Domestic Uranium Enrichment Centrifuge Experiment (DUECE) pilot plant in Tennessee in support of the administration’s efforts to build out a domestic supply of unobligated enriched uranium for defense-related nuclear fuel.
L. A. El-Guebaly, A. Jaber, S. Malang, ARIES-ACT Team
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 61 | Number 4 | May 2012 | Pages 321-331
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-451
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
There is a strong indication that the dual-cooled LiPb blanket is the preferred concept for many fusion power plants being designed around the world. The ability of the blanket to provide tritium self-sufficiency is among the important issues that we investigated in detail for ARIES-ACT to pinpoint the design elements that degrade the breeding the most, using state-of-the-art neutronics codes. A novel stepwise approach was developed to identify the exact cause of the degradation in the tritium breeding ratio (TBR), initially 1.8 for an ideal system, reaching 1.05 for a practical design. More broadly, this paper gives many insights into the impact that internal components of the blanket as well as essential parts of a tokamak can have on the TBR and the more damaging or enhancing conditions or changes to the breeding. To overcome the challenges of dealing with all tritium-related uncertainties in several subsystems, we suggest adjusting the Li enrichment online during operation to mitigate concerns about the danger of placing the plant at risk due to tritium shortage as well as the problem of handling and safeguarding any surplus of tritium.