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
Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver 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!
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2025
Latest News
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
Marta Velarde, J. Manuel Perlado, Luis A. Sedano
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 41 | Number 3 | May 2002 | Pages 812-816
Design and Model | Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Tritium Science and Technology Tsukuba, Japan November 12-16, 2001 | doi.org/10.13182/FST02-A22697
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The environmental impact of the nuclear fusion energy is expected to be very small. It will depend mainly on the reactor materials, and not on the own process of energy production, contrarily to the fission technologies used today. The evaluation of the radiological environmental impact of tritium emission (routine, accidental) requires the use of mathematical and statistical models of dispersion to the biosphere. In the inertial fusion reactors (IFE) design, the coolant is a production source of tritium. We have used inventories of tritium from IFE such as HYLIFE II, OSIRIS, SOMBRERO and CASCADE. The two chemical forms of tritium in the environment contribute in a different way to the Committed Effective Dose Equivalent (50-CEDE). As much as 40% HTO and 98% HT contribute from ingestion of foods. The HTO presents a much higher percentage in the internal radiation for inhalation and absorption for the skin than the HT. The maximum values are in the near ranges to the reactor about 100–400 m of distance of the emission source. In HT emissions the contribution to the total effective dose by ingestion and re-emission is important. The atmospheric and geometric conditions are a decisive factor in the contribution levels from the tritium to the dose. The wet and dry depositions as well as the classes of stability and the rain intensity factor vary these levels increasing or diminishing the values of the dose.
