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.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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
Jan 2026
Jul 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
January 2026
Nuclear Technology
December 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
November 2025
Latest News
AI at work: Southern Nuclear’s adoption of Copilot agents drives fleet forward
Southern Nuclear is leading the charge in artificial intelligence integration, with employee-developed applications driving efficiencies in maintenance, operations, safety, and performance.
The tools span all roles within the company, with thousands of documented uses throughout the fleet, including improved maintenance efficiency, risk awareness in maintenance activities, and better-informed decision-making. The data-intensive process of preparing for and executing maintenance operations is streamlined by leveraging AI to put the right information at the fingertips for maintenance leaders, planners, schedulers, engineers, and technicians.
Lin Hu, Karl D. Hammond, Brian D. Wirth, Dimitrios Maroudas
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 71 | Number 1 | January 2017 | Pages 36-51
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST16-105
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We report the results of a systematic atomic-scale analysis of small helium cluster dynamics near a Σ3<111>{121} symmetric tilt grain boundary (GB) in tungsten based on molecular-dynamics simulations according to a reliable interatomic interaction potential. We find that small, mobile helium clusters (Hen, 1 ≤ n ≤ 7) in the near-GB region are attracted to the GB due to an elastic cluster-GB interaction force. Moreover, as the clusters drift toward the GB, cluster trap mutation (TM) reactions in the near-GB region are activated at rates much higher than those in the bulk of the material’s grains. This near-GB cluster dynamics has significant effects on the near-GB defect structures and the amount of helium retained in the material upon plasma exposure. Each TM reaction generates a tungsten vacancy, which traps helium by forming an immobile helium-vacancy complex, and an interstitial tungsten atom in the form of an extended tungsten interstitial complex on the GB. This interstitial configuration is characterized by mobility that depends on the location where the TM reaction occurs: It is immobile when the vacancy produced by the TM reaction is located a few lattice planes away from the GB plane and highly mobile along a specific direction when the produced vacancy is located on the GB. The latter mechanism initiates a potentially fast migration path for W atoms along the GB toward a free surface, which may influence significantly the surface morphology of plasma-exposed tungsten.