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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.
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2021 Student Conference
April 8–10, 2021
Virtual Meeting
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!
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NC State celebrates 70 years of nuclear engineering education
An early picture of the research reactor building on the North Carolina State University campus. The Department of Nuclear Engineering is celebrating the 70th anniversary of its nuclear engineering curriculum in 2020–2021. Photo: North Carolina State University
The Department of Nuclear Engineering at North Carolina State University has spent the 2020–2021 academic year celebrating the 70th anniversary of its becoming the first U.S. university to establish a nuclear engineering curriculum. It started in 1950, when Clifford Beck, then of Oak Ridge, Tenn., obtained support from NC State’s dean of engineering, Harold Lampe, to build the nation’s first university nuclear reactor and, in conjunction, establish an educational curriculum dedicated to nuclear engineering.
The department, host to the 2021 ANS Virtual Student Conference, scheduled for April 8–10, now features 23 tenure/tenure-track faculty and three research faculty members. “What a journey for the first nuclear engineering curriculum in the nation,” said Kostadin Ivanov, professor and department head.
H. T. Bach, T. H. Allen, D. D. Hill, P. T. Martinez, R. B. Schwarz, S. N. Paglieri, J. R. Wermer
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 54 | Number 1 | July 2008 | Pages 197-201
Technical Paper | Tritium Measurement | dx.doi.org/10.13182/FST08-A1795
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Before surplus plutonium pits can be decommissioned and converted into metal oxides to be used as reactor fuels, residual tritium must be reduced to an acceptable level. We have developed two analytical methods involving melting and acid dissolution, combined with liquid scintillation counting as a quantitative and sensitive technique for measuring residual tritium in Pu metal. The detection limit, linearity, and reproducibility of these analytical methods must be validated with a series of metal tritide standards. Since there are no commercially available metal tritide standards, we have developed a technique for their synthesis. The synthesis of these low-level metal tritide standards is accomplished by charging cerium powder with a known amount of tritium to form a master cerium tritide alloy and then by aliquoting from this master alloy and diluting with pure cerium powder to form a series of standards with different tritium concentrations. The major difficulty in synthesizing these standards is that the samples contain extremely low levels of tritium, which span over three decades of concentrations. The synthesis technique and initial data obtained for cerium hydride samples will be presented.