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
Latest Magazine Issues
Jan 2026
Jul 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
February 2026
Nuclear Technology
December 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
November 2025
Latest News
Radium sources yield cancer-fighting Ac-225 in IAEA program
The International Atomic Energy Agency has reported that, to date, 14 countries have made 14 transfers of disused radium to be recycled for use in advanced cancer treatments under the agency’s Global Radium-226 Management Initiative. Through this initiative, which was launched in 2021, legacy radium-226 from decades-old medical and industrial sources is used to produce actinium-225 radiopharmaceuticals, which have shown effectiveness in the treatment of patients with breast and prostate cancer and certain other cancers.
Xue Zhou Jin
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 77 | Number 5 | July 2021 | Pages 391-402
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2021.1904769
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
For the helium-cooled pebble bed breeding blanket concept improved in 2016 and the associated primary heat transfer system (PHTS) following EU DEMO Baseline 2015, an ex-vessel loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) has been investigated with the assumption of a double-ended guillotine break of a main pipe in an outboard (OB) loop of the PHTS. The break leads to helium blowdown into the tokamak cooling room. A fast plasma shutdown followed by a plasma disruption is activated after the detection of the LOCA due to the design basis accident. Regarding three affected first-wall (FW) areas in one or two OB loops, three main cases are considered. If the FW temperature reaches the defined temperature limit of 1000°C, the FW is assumed to be failed such that an in-vessel LOCA results. In total five scenarios are simulated using MELCOR 1.8.6 for fusion with respect to the affected FW areas, mitigated or unmitigated plasma disruption conditions, the options of the dry or wet suppression tank, and the transport of source terms performed in the case of the beyond design basis accident without the plasma shutdown. The transient results are discussed for the time evolution of the accident sequences, pressurization in the systems, temperature behavior in volumes and structures, and tritium and dust transport behavior.