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
May 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2026
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Reimagining nuclear materials for the future of medicine
Nuclear medicine has come a long way since Henri Becquerel first observed the penetrating energy of radioactive materials in 1896. Today, technetium-99m alone is used in more than 40 million diagnostic procedures every year—from cardiovascular imaging and bone scans to cancer detection—making it the undisputed workhorse of nuclear medicine. That single statistic tells you something important: An enormous portion of modern diagnostic medicine rests on a surprisingly narrow foundation, one built around a small number of aging research reactors that were never originally designed for continuous isotope production.
Richard M. Lell
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 178 | Number 3 | November 2014 | Pages 326-334
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE14-16
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The ZPPR-12 experiments conducted by Argonne National Laboratory were designed to study sodium void worth, cell heterogeneity, and neutron streaming. The small core made it possible to conduct sodium void and neutron streaming experiments over the entire core. The simple, clean, single-zone core had no internal structures such as internal blankets or control rods to affect measurements or complicate interpretation of experimental results. Criticality and selected sodium void worth measurements were evaluated for ZPPR-12, and a detailed uncertainty analysis was performed for the measurements chosen for the benchmark. Highly detailed as-built models were developed for all configurations selected for the benchmark. A simplified RZ model was also created for the criticality benchmark. MCNP5 calculations with ENDF/B-VII.0 data for the benchmark models show generally good agreement between calculated and benchmark values for keff and sodium void worth.