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Division Spotlight
Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Winter Conference and Expo
November 17–21, 2024
Orlando, FL|Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld
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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Latest News
Report touts lessons from era of nuclear waste negotiator
As the Department of Energy embarks on its consent-based process for siting a geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, a new report from the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University SIPA highlights relevant lessons from the federal government’s now defunct Office of the Nuclear Waste Negotiator.
Established under Title IV of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the office, an independent agency within the executive branch, was primarily active from 1990 to 1995. Its role was to engage with state and tribal governments to find an acceptable and suitable host site for a repository.
The full report, Lessons from the Nuclear Waste Negotiator Era of the 1990s for Today’s Consent-Based Siting Efforts, is now available online. Its executive summary is available here.
Jack Galloway, Cetin Unal
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 182 | Number 4 | April 2016 | Pages 523-537
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE15-7
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
While Zircaloy-based claddings have been the workhorse for the nuclear power industry for decades, they have also demonstrated problems, particularly regarding accident scenarios. Work has been performed to assess the viability of stainless steel–based cladding in traditional light water reactors. This paper assesses the reactivity penalty of moving to stainless steel cladding using Monteburns, while attempting to minimize this penalty by increasing the fuel pellet radius and decreasing the cladding thickness. Fuel performance simulations using BISON have also been performed to quantify gains or losses in structural integrity when moving to thinner, stainless steel claddings. Thermal and irradiation creep, along with fission gas swelling, thermal swelling, and fuel relocation, are accounted for in the models for both Zircaloy and stainless steel claddings. Additional models for the lower-oxidation stainless steel APMT are also invoked where available, with irradiation data for HT9 used as a fallback in the absence of appropriate models. In this study the isotopic vectors within each natural element are varied to assess potential reactivity gains if advanced enrichment capabilities were levied toward cladding technologies. Recommendations on cladding thicknesses for a robust cladding as well as the constitutive components of a less penalizing composition are provided.