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
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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
Jan 2026
Jul 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
January 2026
Nuclear Technology
December 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
November 2025
Latest News
AI at work: Southern Nuclear’s adoption of Copilot agents drives fleet forward
Southern Nuclear is leading the charge in artificial intelligence integration, with employee-developed applications driving efficiencies in maintenance, operations, safety, and performance.
The tools span all roles within the company, with thousands of documented uses throughout the fleet, including improved maintenance efficiency, risk awareness in maintenance activities, and better-informed decision-making. The data-intensive process of preparing for and executing maintenance operations is streamlined by leveraging AI to put the right information at the fingertips for maintenance leaders, planners, schedulers, engineers, and technicians.
Karen A. Miller, Martyn T. Swinhoe, Stephen Croft, Takayuki Tamura, Shun Aiuchi, Akio Kawai, Tomonori Iwamoto
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 176 | Number 1 | January 2014 | Pages 98-105
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE12-43
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
As new uranium enrichment plants are proposed and come online worldwide, interest in using neutron methods for uranium hexafluoride (UF6) cylinder assay has been growing; however, large discrepancies exist in published F(α,n) yields from uranium isotopes. Uncertainties in these data are propagated through the analysis of every UF6 measurement and have implications for safeguards conclusions drawn from them. In this paper, a value for the specific F(α,n) yield in UF6 from 234U is calculated from measurements of 30B cylinders containing bulk UF6 at the Rokkasho Enrichment Plant in Japan. The measurements were taken using the Uranium Cylinder Assay System. The yield was derived by combining the cylinder measurements with detailed Monte Carlo modeling, known isotopic composition, and inversion analysis. We calculated the 234U neutron emission rate in UF6 to be (474 ± 21) n/s·g−1 with a 68% confidence level. The results obtained in this study will help enable an important class of nondestructive assay instruments to be applied with greater confidence and accuracy.
