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 Winter Conference & Expo
November 15–18, 2026
Phoenix, AZ|Arizona Grand Resort & Spa
Latest Magazine Issues
Sep 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
October 2026
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Westinghouse, Nordion, and PSEG team up to produce Co‑60 in the United States
This past January, Westinghouse Electric Company, Nordion, and PSEG Nuclear formalized agreements to implement newly developed cobalt-60 production technology at Units 1 and 2 of PSEG’s Salem nuclear power plant in New Jersey, with the Co-60 to be supplied to Nordion. Through an ongoing joint initiative, the companies aim to harness U.S. pressurized water reactors to produce a key medical isotope and build the first commercial-scale Co-60 production platform in the United States.
Adam Davis, Donald J. Dudziak, Drew E. Kornreich
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 178 | Number 1 | September 2014 | Pages 42-56
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE13-10
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Photon buildup factors provide a convenient method for radiation protection professionals to calculate dose and exposure behind various shielding configurations. Examination of buildup factors can also provide insight into the behavior of photons in these shields. Recent work has developed dual-layer buildup factors for several shielding configurations and a limited number of energies while slant-path buildup factors have been developed for single-layer shields. This work develops slant-path buildup factors for slab-geometric, dual-layer shields comprising polyethylene and lead at 25 energies conforming to the energies used in the buildup factor standard ANSI/ANS-6.4.3-1991 (W2001), “Gamma-Ray Attenuation Coefficients and Buildup Factors for Engineering Materials,” between 10 keV and 10 MeV. Further, the increased energy resolution of the calculations performed in this work allows the energy at which the previously identified “buildup reversal” phenomenon occurs to be more precisely identified. The effect of mesh spacing and quadrature resolution on fluence through the shields is also considered.