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
Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy
The mission of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division (NNPD) is to promote the peaceful use of nuclear technology while simultaneously preventing the diversion and misuse of nuclear material and technology through appropriate safeguards and security, and promotion of nuclear nonproliferation policies. To achieve this mission, the objectives of the NNPD are to: Promote policy that discourages the proliferation of nuclear technology and material to inappropriate entities. Provide information to ANS members, the technical community at large, opinion leaders, and decision makers to improve their understanding of nuclear nonproliferation issues. Become a recognized technical resource on nuclear nonproliferation, safeguards, and security issues. Serve as the integration and coordination body for nuclear nonproliferation activities for the ANS. Work cooperatively with other ANS divisions to achieve these objective nonproliferation policies.
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
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.
P. A. Bagryansky et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 59 | Number 1 | January 2011 | Pages 31-35
doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A11568
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A so called vortex confinement of plasma in axially symmetric mirror device was studied. This recently developed approach enables to significantly reduce transverse particle and heat losses typically caused by MHD instabilities which can be excited in this case. Vortex confinement regime was established by application of different potentials to the radial plasma limiters and end-plates. As a result, the sheared plasma flow at periphery appears which wraps the plasma core. Experiments were carried out on the gas dynamic trap device, where hot ions with a mean energy of Eh [approximately equal] 9 keV and the maximum density of energetic ions nh [approximately equal] 51019m-3 were produced by oblique injection of deuterium or hydrogen neutral beams into a collisional warm plasma with the electron temperature up to 250 eV and density nw [approximately equal] 21019m-3. Local plasma approaching 0.6 was measured. The measured transverse heat losses were considerably smaller than the axial ones. The measured axial losses were found to be in a good agreement with the results of numerical simulations. Recent experimental results support the concept of the neutron source based on the gas dynamic trap.