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Division Spotlight
Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
Meeting Spotlight
2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
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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Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2025
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July 2025
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Latest News
Nuclear fuel cycle reimagined: Powering the next frontiers from nuclear waste
In the fall of 2023, a small Zeno Power team accomplished a major feat: they demonstrated the first strontium-90 heat source in decades—and the first-ever by a commercial company.
Zeno Power worked with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to fabricate and validate this Z1 heat source design at the lab’s Radiochemical Processing Laboratory. The Z1 demonstration heralded renewed interest in developing radioisotope power system (RPS) technology. In early 2025, the heat source was disassembled, and the Sr-90 was returned to the U.S. Department of Energy for continued use.
Mohammed Alqahtani, Adriaan Buijs, Meshari ALQahtani
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 196 | Number 5 | May 2022 | Pages 614-622
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2021.2003651
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Changes in the thermal power of a nuclear research reactor will lead to changes in experimental, irradiation, and testing conditions. Consequently, reactor core parameters are inevitably susceptible to changes. One such parameter is gamma heating (GH), which results from gamma interaction with materials. In this work, a gamma thermometer was used to measure GH over the course of 7 operational days and nights. In addition, the Monte Carlo reactor physics code Serpent-2 was used to evaluate the sensitivity of common detection methods for monitoring reactor core parameters such as neutron fluxes, GH, and gamma flux under the following conditions: reactor core power variation, reactor core fuel shuffling, and detector vicinity fuel assembly shuffling. The GH values obtained through measurements and calculations were linearly proportional to the reactor power. In addition, the Serpent-2 code for the McMaster nuclear reactor showed that despite maintaining the reactor power core at the same level, the fuel burnup distribution could alter the studied parameters.