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
Apr 2026
Jan 2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2026
Nuclear Technology
March 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
OECD NEA project gets ahead of AI use in nuclear industry
The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency’s International Regulatory Laboratory (RegLab) Project, which brings together experts from across the nuclear field to examine the potential impact of emerging technologies, has released a report on its first cycle that details the outcomes of a RegLab focused on the use of artificial intelligence in real-time monitoring of nuclear power plants.
Participants started out with an initial problem/opportunity statement, from which they developed a use case and a mock safety, security, safeguards, and environmental protection (SSSE) case. Then, over the course of two workshops, participants considered these cases in depth.
M. Paraipan, V. M. Javadova, S. I. Tyutyunnikov
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 198 | Number 1 | January 2024 | Pages 109-120
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2023.2175582
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Conditions that maximize the performance of an accelerator-driven system related to particle beam and energy and accelerator type are analyzed. The toolkit Geant4 simulated the interaction of protons and ions with masses up to 20Ne and energies from 0.2 to 2 GeV/n. The beam intensity considered is 1.5 × 1016 p/s. The core of the reactor is modeled as an assembly of fuel rods surrounding a cylindrical beryllium converter, with a criticality coefficient of 0.985 and lead-bismuth eutectic coolant. Lower enrichment generates better utilization of fuel (20% to 25% from the initial actinide mass can fission in a cycle keeping neutron damage in clad below 200 displacements per atom). Data on particle fluence and energy released obtained from the simulation are used to calculate total electric power produced and isotope evolution. Power spent to accelerate the beam depends on accelerator type and is calculated by scaling from data on accelerator efficiency for a reference particle. Optimal proton energy is ~1.5 GeV when the beam is accelerated in a linac with energy gain G ~ 14 and is 0.75 to 1 GeV in the case of a cyclotron (G ~ 12). Ion beams starting with 4He realize higher G values than protons: 20 to 50 in a linac and 15 to 35 in a cyclotron.