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
Decommissioning & Environmental Sciences
The mission of the Decommissioning and Environmental Sciences (DES) Division is to promote the development and use of those skills and technologies associated with the use of nuclear energy and the optimal management and stewardship of the environment, sustainable development, decommissioning, remediation, reutilization, and long-term surveillance and maintenance of nuclear-related installations, and sites. The target audience for this effort is the membership of the Division, the Society, and the public at large.
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.
Antonio Ballesteros, Radian Sanda, Michael Maqua, Jean-Luc Stephan
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 184 | Number 4 | December 2016 | Pages 575-583
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE16-80
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An in-depth analysis of maintenance-related events was performed by screening four different databases. The events cover the period 2002 to 2013. A total of 921 events were selected for analysis. An examination of the selected events resulted in their classification into nine categories or groups (e.g., plant state, type of maintenance, affected component, root cause, etc.). For further analyses, the categories were divided into families and, if necessary, into subfamilies. One of the event classifications was according to the type of maintenance (periodic, predictive, planned, and corrective). The data analysis indicated that 47% of the events reported were related to periodic maintenance. The main affected components were valves (with 33% of the events), followed by electric power components (23%). The main root causes observed are maintenance performed incorrectly (27%), deficiencies in written procedures or documents (19%), and deficiencies in management or organization (17%). Regarding the impact on safety, the dominant family is potential effects on safety function (57%), followed by significant effect on operation (20%).