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
Materials Science & Technology
The objectives of MSTD are: promote the advancement of materials science in Nuclear Science Technology; support the multidisciplines which constitute it; encourage research by providing a forum for the presentation, exchange, and documentation of relevant information; promote the interaction and communication among its members; and recognize and reward its members for significant contributions to the field of materials science in nuclear technology.
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
Mar 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
April 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
February 2024
Latest News
Remembering Joseph M. Hendrie
Joseph M. Hendrie
To those of us who knew Joe, even prior to his appointment as chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, it is an understatement to say that he was a larger-than-life member of the nuclear science and technology enterprise. He was best known to the broader community for two major accomplishments: the design and construction of the High Flux Beam Reactor (HFBR) at Brookhaven National Laboratory and the creation of the standard review plan (SRP) for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
In addition to the products of these endeavors becoming major fundaments to their respective communities, they were uniquely Joe. The safety analysis report for the HFBR was written essentially single-handedly by him. This was true of the SRP as well, which became the key safety review document for the NRC as it performed safety reviews for the growing number of power reactor applications in the United States. His deep technical knowledge of nuclear engineering and his extraordinary management skills made this possible.
S. Welte, M. Sturm, D. Hillesheimer, L. T. Le, S. Schäfer, E. Fanghänel, F. Priester, A. Marsteller
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 76 | Number 3 | April 2020 | Pages 227-231
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2019.1705681
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The main task of the Tritium Laboratory Karlsruhe (TLK) in 2018 was the commissioning and First Tritium (FT) operation of the windowless gaseous tritium source (WGTS) of the Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment. It was paramount to enable the FT measurement run of the KATRIN experiment, to yield first scientific results with the complete KATRIN beamline.
The aim of KATRIN is to determine the mass of the electron-antineutrino by precise spectroscopy of the tritium β-spectrum close to its maximum energy of 18.6 keV. KATRIN uses an ultraluminous source (WGTS) and a high-resolution electrostatic spectrometer. While the inner loop system of KATRIN has the task of providing stabilized tritium circulation with a throughput of 40 g·day−1 for the WGTS, the outer loop incorporates the entire TLK infrastructure for tritium cleanup, purification, and accountancy prior to reinjection of tritium into the inner loop.
For KATRIN’s FT run, ≈5 × 1013 Bq (2.3 × 10−2 mol) of tritium was provided in 3.2 mol of deuterium. In contrast to the high isotopic purity of >95% tritium necessary for future KATRIN operation, a concentration of 7 × 108 Bq·m−3 (resulting in 0.5% nominal source luminosity) had to be kept constant during the entire FT campaign. This required a processing scheme deviating from the later KATRIN outer loop processing procedure.
This paper describes the procedures used to supply the KATRIN inner loop with its FT gas. Furthermore, experience gained during operation of the different gas processing steps and tritium accountancy is presented.