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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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Jun 2025
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2025
Nuclear Technology
July 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
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.
Tran Kim Tuyet, Alexis Jinaphanh, Cédric Jouanne, Frédéric Gérardin, Sébastien Lemaire, Andrea Zoia
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 198 | Number 2 | February 2024 | Pages 319-335
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2023.2195925
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In view of their key role in radiation shielding and nuclear instrumentation applications, photonuclear reactions are receiving growing attention. In this work, we compare the results of the Monte Carlo codes TRIPOLI4®, DIANE, and MCNP® with respect to the Barber and George (B&G) benchmark, with the aim of assessing the accuracy of both nuclear data and particle transport codes for the simulation of photonuclear reactions. We compute the photoneutron yield resulting from the Bremsstrahlung radiation induced by a monoenergetic electron beam (10.5 to 35.5 MeV) impinging on C, Al, Cu, Pb, Ta, and U material targets. The simulation specifications closely follow those of the B&G experiment. For all codes, the reference nuclear data libraries are ENDF/B-VII.1 for neutron transport and photonuclear reactions and EPDL97/EEDL97 for photon/electron transport. Comparisons of the simulation results show an overall agreement between the codes and experimental data and in-between codes, despite some discrepancies.
In order to investigate these effects, we performed a sensitivity analysis by tallying the photon production in addition to neutron production by replacing the electron source with a pure photon source (to single out the impact of electron transport) and by replacing the ENDF/B-VII.1 library with the IAEA/PD-2019. The major contribution to the observed discrepancies is found to be related to the electromagnetic shower models used for coupled electron-photon transport in Monte Carlo codes.
