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
Aerospace Nuclear Science & Technology
Organized to promote the advancement of knowledge in the use of nuclear science and technologies in the aerospace application. Specialized nuclear-based technologies and applications are needed to advance the state-of-the-art in aerospace design, engineering and operations to explore planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond, plus enhance the safety of air travel, especially high speed air travel. Areas of interest will include but are not limited to the creation of nuclear-based power and propulsion systems, multifunctional materials to protect humans and electronic components from atmospheric, space, and nuclear power system radiation, human factor strategies for the safety and reliable operation of nuclear power and propulsion plants by non-specialized personnel and more.
Meeting Spotlight
2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
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 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Webinar: MC&A and safety in advanced reactors in focus
Towell
Russell
Prasad
The American Nuclear Society’s Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division recently hosted a webinar on updating material control and accounting (MC&A) and security regulations for the evolving field of advanced reactors.
Moderator Shikha Prasad (CEO, Srijan LLC) was joined by two presenters, John Russell and Lester Towell, who looked at how regulations that were historically developed for traditional light water reactors will apply to the next generation of nuclear technology and what changes need to be made.
Sunday, June 12, 2022
Two Morning Tutorials from 8 am to 12 pm
Title: Criticality Calculations using MCNP6.3
Requirements for Attendees: General knowledge of MCNP6
Summary Paragraph: This tutorial focuses on using MCNP6.3 to perform criticality calculations for criticality safety and reactor physics applications and promoting use of MCNP version 6.3 at DOE sites. Lectures provide an overview of Monte Carlo simulation methods and highlight state-of-the-art in criticality simulations, eigenvalue calculations, convergence analysis and bias in k-effective. New features and physics improvements in MCNP6.3 will be covered including adaptive meshing, fission-matrix, accelerated fission convergence of neutron distribution, and new statistical tests for convergence. Sensitivity and uncertainty analysis using Whisper-1.1 will be discussed and calculation examples demonstrated.
Title: Using the SCALE Sampler Sequence for Uncertainty Quantification and Parametric Studies
Requirements for Attendees: No requirements; however, attendees with SCALE 6.2 (or more recent) can participate in UQ demos, and attendees with SCALE 6.2.2 (or more recent) can participate in UQ & parametric studies demos.
Summary Paragraph: This tutorial will introduce the capabilities of the Sampler sequence, available starting in SCALE 6.2. The initial implementation of Sampler included uncertainty quantification (UQ) based on Monte Carlo sampling of multigroup nuclear data or input parameters in any SCALE sequence. The tutorial will touch on nuclear data sampling but will focus on UQ for input materials and geometry descriptions in criticality safety models. The Sampler sequence was expanded in the 6.2.2 update to include a parametric study capability. This capability is particularly useful for nuclear criticality safety evaluations and has been used extensively in recent work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Demonstrations of both the UQ and parametric capabilities will be included. Attendees with licensed copies of SCALE 6.2 installed on their devices will be able to follow along with presenters in the demonstrations.
Two Afternoon Tutorials from 2 pm to 5 pm
Title: Benchmarking in Today’s World
Requirements for Attendees: Fill out questionnaire regarding background and interest as part of registration; a short pre-reading will be sent to all attendees
Summary Paragraph: The speakers will talk through what is required and the level of detail required in each section of an ICSBEP benchmark. People experienced in the ICSBEP process and performing evaluations will present covering the overall process and the three main sections of benchmarks. Information gained will support developing benchmarks as well as knowledge regarding how they can be potentially used once published.
Title: Using UNF-ST&NDARDS for Criticality Analysis of Spent Fuel Systems
Summary Paragraph: UNF-ST&DARDS is being developed to provide the ability to perform automated analysis of spent fuel storage and transportation systems. One of the key capabilities of UNF-ST&DARDS is to perform criticality analysis of dry casks. UNF-ST&DARDS allows for modelling the variation of cask payload burnup enrichments and cooling times through a flexible GUI. Users can also modify, neutron absorber loadings, water soluble boron concentrations, and fuel and canister dimensions for fresh and spent fuel. This demonstration will show users how to perform criticality analysis for casks using templates and graphical user interface. Attendees have no requirements to watch the demonstrate, however, an RSICC license for UNF-ST&DARDS and SCALE is necessary if they would like to follow along.
Last modified January 21, 2022, 8:51am PST
