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
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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
Jul 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
July 2025
Latest News
DOE on track to deliver high-burnup SNF to Idaho by 2027
The Department of Energy said it anticipated delivering a research cask of high-burnup spent nuclear fuel from Dominion Energy’s North Anna nuclear power plant in Virginia to Idaho National Laboratory by fall 2027. The planned shipment is part of the High Burnup Dry Storage Research Project being conducted by the DOE with the Electric Power Research Institute.
As preparations continue, the DOE said it is working closely with federal agencies as well as tribal and state governments along potential transportation routes to ensure safety, transparency, and readiness every step of the way.
Watch the DOE’s latest video outlining the project here.
M. J. Rivard, B. L. Kirk, L. C. Leal
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 149 | Number 1 | January 2005 | Pages 101-106
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE05-A2480
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Radiation dose distributions of brachytherapy sources are generally characterized with the assumption that all internal components are equally radioactive. Autoradiographs and discussions with source manufacturers indicated this assumption of the radionuclide physical distribution may be invalid. Consequently, clinical dose distributions would be in error when not accounting for these internal variations. Many implants use brachytherapy sources with four 125I resin beads and two radiopaque markers used for imaging. Monte Carlo methods were used to determine dose contributions from each of the resin beads. These contributions were compared with those from an idealized source having a uniform physical distribution. Upon varying the 125I physical distribution while retaining the same overall radioactivity, the dose distribution along the transverse plane remained constant within 5% for r > 0.5 cm. For r 0.5 cm, relative positioning of the resin beads dominated the shielding effects, and dose distributions varied up to a factor of 3 at r = 0.05 cm. For points off the transverse plane, comparisons of the uniform and nonuniform dose distributions produced larger variations. Shielding effects within the capsule were virtually constant along the source long axis and demonstrated that anisotropy variations among the four resin beads were dependent on internal component positioning.