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Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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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Fusion Science and Technology
February 2024
Latest News
Why should safeguards by design be a global effort?
Jeremy Whitlock
I can’t think of a more exciting time to be working in nuclear, with the diversity of advanced reactor development and increasing global support for nuclear in sustainable energy planning. But we can’t lose sight of the need to plan for efficient international safeguards at the same time.
Global nuclear deployment has been underpinned since 1970 by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), making it a key customer requirement for governments to demonstrate unequivocally that the technology is not being misused for weapons development.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has helped verify this commitment for more than 50 years, but it has never safeguarded many of the advanced reactors (and related fuel cycle processes) being developed today.
X. Liu, W. Peng, F. Xie, J. Cao, Y. Dong, X. Duan, Y. Wen, B. Shan, K. Sun, G. Zheng
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 76 | Number 4 | May 2020 | Pages 513-525
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2020.1718856
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Tritium (3H) has been increasingly researched when assessing the environmental impact of nuclear reactors and other nuclear facilities because it is widely present in nuclear systems and can easily enter the environment. The first pebble-bed gas-cooled test reactor in China, the 10 MW high temperature gas-cooled test reactor (HTR-10), uses helium, graphite, and graphite spheres containing embedded tristructural-isotropic–coated particles as primary coolant, reflectors, and fuel elements, respectively. Several experiments that involved the 3H source term in HTR-10 were performed, and they measured the 3H specific activity and its distribution in the irradiated graphite spheres from the core, 3H activity concentration in the primary helium, 3H activity concentration during the regeneration of the molecular sieve adsorber in the helium purification system, and 3H amount in the gaseous effluent discharge from the stack. The experimental data were summarized and compared with the theoretical predictions. The balance diagram of the 3H source term in HTR-10 is introduced in this paper. Sensitivity analysis was performed to illustrate the effect of the 3He abundance in the primary helium and Li content in the graphite reflectors on the 3H activity concentration in the primary coolant of HTR-10. The interactions between graphite and different hydrogen isotopes (1H, 3H, 1H2, 1H3H, and 3H2) were investigated using first-principles calculations and the diffusion theory. The results indicated that molecular 3H tended to diffuse in graphite.