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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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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Latest News
NNSA awards BWXT $1.5B defense fuels contract
The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration has awarded BWX Technologies a contract valued at $1.5 billion to build a Domestic Uranium Enrichment Centrifuge Experiment (DUECE) pilot plant in Tennessee in support of the administration’s efforts to build out a domestic supply of unobligated enriched uranium for defense-related nuclear fuel.
Lucile S. Dauffy, Hesham Y. Khater, Shivakumar Sitaraman, Sandra J. Brereton
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 56 | Number 2 | August 2009 | Pages 736-740
Nuclear Analysis | Eighteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Part 2) | doi.org/10.13182/FST18-P1.38
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Commissioning shots have commenced at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Within a year, the 192 laser beam facility will be operational and the experimental phase will begin. At each shot, the emitted neutrons will interact with surroundings, activating them, especially inside the target bay where the neutron flux is the highest. We are calculating the dose from those activated structures and objects in order to plan and minimize worker exposure during maintenance and normal NIF operation. This study presents the results of the activation analysis of the optics of the Final Optics Assemblies (FOA), which are a key contributor to worker exposure. There are 48 FOAs weighting three tons each, and routine change-out and maintenance of optics and optics modules is expected. We found that the effective dose from any optics is negligible 6 days after the last shot, and that the effective dose from frames is low but should be minimized not to reach the dose limit.