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
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.
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
Apr 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2024
Nuclear Technology
May 2024
Fusion Science and Technology
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.
Leah Spradley, Mark Abkowitz, James H. Clarke
Nuclear Technology | Volume 170 | Number 2 | May 2010 | Pages 322-335
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT10-A9486
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This research estimates the likelihood of the number of occurrences of three internal events involving crane transfers during the potential 50-year preclosure operational period of Yucca Mountain (YM): (a) drop of a bare-fuel assembly, (b) drop of a transport, aging, and disposal canister, and (c) drop of a dual-purpose canister. The analysis employs a model developed by the authors for predicting the packaging and thermal characteristics of waste streams arriving at YM and is related to a study on throughput for the surface facilities that was also conducted by the authors using the model. The model generates waste streams for commercial spent nuclear fuel as a function of repository design parameters and operating strategies.Waste streams arriving at the repository are assumed to be routed for processing in the surface facilities based on the thermal properties of the packages. This allows for estimation of the number of material crane transfers associated with each waste stream. The number of drops over the preclosure period is described as a binomial distribution, where each crane transfer is treated as an identical, independent trial with an outcome of drop or no drop.Results indicate that the drop events are not expected to occur one or more times during the preclosure operational period. This paper demonstrates an approach for estimating the likely distributions for frequencies of drop events, accounting for uncertainty in waste stream quantities in addition to changing assumptions about the crane drop rate. While it is recognized that results of this analysis are specific to YM surface facility design, the approach can be adapted for similar systems designed for centralized interim storage.
