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Division Spotlight
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
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.
Mahdi Bakhtiari, Nam-Suk Jung, Wooyong Um, Hee-Seock Lee
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 198 | Number 2 | February 2024 | Pages 461-475
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2162791
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Neutron imaging is a powerful and nondestructive tool for testing materials in industrial and research applications. Compact accelerator neutron sources are gaining interest in neutron application techniques, such as Bragg edge transmission imaging. Delivering a high neutron flux with a narrow pulse width and suppressed photons at the sample position are fundamental factors for designing a neutron source for Bragg edge imaging. In this study, Monte Carlo calculations were performed to simulate a 40-MeV electron beam impinging on a cylindrical tungsten target. Different target moderator and reflector (TMR) geometries were investigated to produce cold neutrons, and their results were compared. Polyethylene (PE) and graphite were used as the moderator and the reflector, respectively. The structures and dimensions of the moderator and reflector were optimized using a Monte Carlo simulation with the PHITS-3.28 code. The effect of the PE moderator temperature on the cold neutron flux was investigated. The results showed that the optimum size of the PE at 77 K inside the reflector was 3 15 15 cm3 to achieve the wavelength resolution of 1.05% and the neutron flux of 1.16 104 n/cm2/s at 1000 cm from the target station by assuming the electron beam current of 275 µA. In addition, the FLUKA 4-2.1 code was used to calculate the neutron spectrum from the designed neutron production target at room temperature, and the results were consistent with the PHITS calculations. The neutron spectrum together with its pulse width from the designed TMR were used to simulate the Bragg edges of an -Fe sample, and it was concluded that the TMR is suitable for performing Bragg edge imaging.