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Division Spotlight
Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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!
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Latest News
Commercial nuclear innovation "new space" age
In early 2006, a start-up company launched a small rocket from a tiny island in the Pacific. It exploded, showering the island with debris. A year later, a second launch attempt sent a rocket to space but failed to make orbit, burning up in the atmosphere. Another year brought a third attempt—and a third failure. The following month, in September 2008, the company used the last of its funds to launch a fourth rocket. It reached orbit, making history as the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to do so.
Alexander Glaser
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 163 | Number 1 | September 2009 | Pages 26-33
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE163-26
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We report neutronics calculations for the most important natural uranium-fueled reactor types historically used for weapons plutonium production. These include an early design of the Hanford-type graphite-moderated and light-water-cooled reactor used in the United States; the Calder Hall-type graphite-moderated and gas-cooled reactor used in the United Kingdom; and the NRX-type heavy-water-moderated and light-water-cooled reactor, originally developed in Canada for civilian purposes but later used in India and Pakistan for military plutonium production. We show that while it is possible in principle to identify with a high level of confidence weapon-grade plutonium compositions produced in other types of reactors, e.g., light-water-cooled or fast neutron reactors, it is difficult to distinguish among plutonium compositions generated in dedicated production reactors fueled with natural uranium. This suggests that efforts to determine the origin of weapon-grade plutonium for a nuclear forensic analysis could well remain inconclusive without access to databases based on actual samples of the nuclear material.