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.
Division Spotlight
Nuclear Installations Safety
Devoted specifically to the safety of nuclear installations and the health and safety of the public, this division seeks a better understanding of the role of safety in the design, construction and operation of nuclear installation facilities. The division also promotes engineering and scientific technology advancement associated with the safety of such facilities.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
May 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Strontium: Supply-and-demand success for the DOE’s Isotope Program
The Department of Energy’s Isotope Program (DOE IP) announced last week that it would end its “active standby” capability for strontium-82 production about two decades after beginning production of the isotope for cardiac diagnostic imaging. The DOE IP is celebrating commercialization of the Sr-82 supply chain as “a success story for both industry and the DOE IP.” Now that the Sr-82 market is commercially viable, the DOE IP and its National Isotope Development Center can “reassign those dedicated radioisotope production capacities to other mission needs”—including Sr-89.
Glen A. Warren, Kevin K. Anderson, Jonathan Kulisek, Yaron Danon, Adam Weltz, A. Gavron, Jason Harris, Trevor N. Stewart
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 179 | Number 3 | March 2015 | Pages 264-273
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE13-71
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Improved nondestructive assay of isotopic masses in used nuclear fuel would be valuable for nuclear safeguards operations associated with the transport, storage, and reprocessing of used nuclear fuel. Our collaboration is examining the feasibility of using lead slowing-down spectrometry techniques to assay the isotopic fissile masses in used nuclear fuel assemblies. We present the application of our analysis algorithms to measurements conducted with a lead spectrometer. The measurements involved a single fresh fuel pin and discrete 239Pu and 235U samples. We are able to describe the isotopic fissile masses with root-mean-square errors over seven different configurations to 6.3% for 239Pu and 2.7% for 235U. Significant effort is yet needed to demonstrate the applicability of these algorithms for used-fuel assemblies, but the results reported here are encouraging in demonstrating that we are making progress toward that goal.