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Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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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AI at work: Southern Nuclear’s adoption of Copilot agents drives fleet forward
Southern Nuclear is leading the charge in artificial intelligence integration, with employee-developed applications driving efficiencies in maintenance, operations, safety, and performance.
The tools span all roles within the company, with thousands of documented uses throughout the fleet, including improved maintenance efficiency, risk awareness in maintenance activities, and better-informed decision-making. The data-intensive process of preparing for and executing maintenance operations is streamlined by leveraging AI to put the right information at the fingertips for maintenance leaders, planners, schedulers, engineers, and technicians.
Robert E. Miles
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 79 | Number 2 | October 1981 | Pages 239-245
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE81-A27414
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new approach is presented for handling problems involving radioactive decay, buildup, and mass transfer. This method uses recursion relations for computing the exponential terms that makes the computation fast and efficient. The concepts of a path specific probability function and a cumulative transfer probability function are introduced and used in developing a general equation. This general equation permits branching from a parent to any daughter nuclide further down the decay chain and also mass transfer to other compartments linked by first-order transfer rate constants. Backward branching or feedback mechanisms, however, are not permitted. Treatment for problems involving singularities is also presented. The method has been found to be useful for many practical applications such as fission product buildup in nuclear reactor cores and releases from reactor plants.