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Division Spotlight
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
Meeting Spotlight
2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott 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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Latest News
Nominations open for CNTA awards
Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness is accepting nominations for its Fred C. Davison Distinguished Scientist Award and its Nuclear Service Award. Nominations for both awards must be submitted by August 1.
The awards will be presented this fall as part of the CNTA’s annual Edward Teller Lecture event.
Max Aker, Marco Röllig
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 76 | Number 3 | April 2020 | Pages 373-378
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2020.1712989
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Beta-induced X-ray spectrometry (BIXS) is a promising method for activity monitoring of tritiated gas species. BIXS systems measure bremsstrahlung and characteristic X-rays generated by interactions of beta decay electrons with surfaces within the measurement chamber. BIXS and other highly sensitive methods such as ionization counting are limited in accuracy by the tritium memory effect, a preconditioning dependent background signal caused by the sorption of tritium on surfaces. In this work, different surface materials have been investigated aiming at reducing the tritium memory effect while providing a high bremsstrahlung yield. A modular BIXS setup was developed that allows the consecutive investigation of different measurement cells utilizing the same detector while protecting it from contamination during cell exchanges. An uncoated stainless steel cell was compared to cells coated with Au, Ir, Ti-W, Ti-Au-Al, and Ti-Au-Cu layer systems. The sample cells were repeatedly exposed to 1100 Pa of molecular tritium. The development of the resulting memory effect was measured during the evacuation between consecutive exposures. Additionally, the background signal decay was investigated in a long-term measurement after the last exposure. In this presentation, the measurement results of the relative tritium memory effect from various surfaces will be shown. The lowest memory effect was measured for the gold-coated sample cell, reaching a background signal equal to (0.83 ± 0.14)% of the signal during exposure after a total dosage of 21.33 × 104 Pa h.