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Division Spotlight
Human Factors, Instrumentation & Controls
Improving task performance, system reliability, system and personnel safety, efficiency, and effectiveness are the division's main objectives. Its major areas of interest include task design, procedures, training, instrument and control layout and placement, stress control, anthropometrics, psychological input, and motivation.
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
May 2024
Nuclear Technology
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.
Challenge: Expedite nuclear education updates and knowledge transfer.
How: Expedite updates to the higher education Nuclear Engineering curriculum to better match today’s needs. It must include the cross-disciplinary nature of today’s research and the business and communications skills needed for an entrepreneurial path, while improving the transfer of knowledge and expertise in nuclear science and technology from the current generation to future generations.
Background: The nuclear workforce is aging, and the current university Nuclear Engineering curriculum needs to be updated. The average age of nuclear scientists and engineers in the nuclear energy industry, national laboratories, and universities is over 50. These professionals have a wealth of knowledge that is not necessarily written in books. As these workers leave the workforce, much of that knowledge is being lost.
Effective means to transfer that knowledge to the newest group of scientists and engineers needs to be developed and implemented. Additionally, the Nuclear Engineering curriculum in U.S. universities stands essentially unchanged over the past 20-plus years. With the advent of new reactor designs and the challenges within materials science to meet the needs of these new designs, the curriculum structure must be reviewed and updated to better meet the needs of industry, suppliers, and research organizations. Inclusion of courses in advanced reactor design, small reactor design and operation, and materials science may need to be included. If we do not know our history, we are doomed to repeat our predecessors’ mistakes.
Last modified May 12, 2017, 1:23am CDT