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Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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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Glass strategy: Hanford’s enhanced waste glass program
The mission of the Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection (ORP) is to complete the safe cleanup of waste resulting from decades of nuclear weapons development. One of the most technologically challenging responsibilities is the safe disposition of approximately 56 million gallons of radioactive waste historically stored in 177 tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
ORP has a clear incentive to reduce the overall mission duration and cost. One pathway is to develop and deploy innovative technical solutions that can advance baseline flow sheets toward higher efficiency operations while reducing identified risks without compromising safety. Vitrification is the baseline process that will convert both high-level and low-level radioactive waste at Hanford into a stable glass waste form for long-term storage and disposal.
Although vitrification is a mature technology, there are key areas where technology can further reduce operational risks, advance baseline processes to maximize waste throughput, and provide the underpinning to enhance operational flexibility; all steps in reducing mission duration and cost.
F. Baque
Nuclear Technology | Volume 150 | Number 1 | April 2005 | Pages 67-78
Technical Paper | Sodium Technology | doi.org/10.13182/NT05-A3606
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In-service monitoring of nuclear plants is indispensable for both the Operator and the Regulator. The notion of in-service monitoring ranges from the continuous monitoring of the reactor in operation to the thorough in-service reactor inspection during programmed shutdowns. However, the highly specific environment found in French liquid metal fast reactor plants - Phénix and Superphénix - makes monitoring and inspection complicated because of the use of a sodium coolant that is hot, opaque, and difficult to drain.The Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique, in collaboration with its traditional French partners, Electricité de France utilities and FRAMATOME/Novatome Engineering, decided to conduct a 6-yr research and development program (1994-2000) to explore this problem vis-à-vis Superphénix, as well as the possibilities of intervening within the reactor block or on components in a sodium environment. Furthermore, the safety reevaluation of Phénix, conducted between 1994 and 2003, represented an excellent "test bench" during which the limits of inspection processes - applied to an integrated reactor concept - were surpassed using techniques such as fuel subassembly head scanning, ultrasonic examination of the core support, and visual inspection of the cover-gas plenum following a partial sodium draining. Repair techniques were investigated for cleaning of sodium wet structure surfaces, cutting of damaged parts, and welding in sodium aerosol atmosphere. Both conventional and laser processes were tested.