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.
Division Spotlight
Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy
The mission of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division (NNPD) is to promote the peaceful use of nuclear technology while simultaneously preventing the diversion and misuse of nuclear material and technology through appropriate safeguards and security, and promotion of nuclear nonproliferation policies. To achieve this mission, the objectives of the NNPD are to: Promote policy that discourages the proliferation of nuclear technology and material to inappropriate entities. Provide information to ANS members, the technical community at large, opinion leaders, and decision makers to improve their understanding of nuclear nonproliferation issues. Become a recognized technical resource on nuclear nonproliferation, safeguards, and security issues. Serve as the integration and coordination body for nuclear nonproliferation activities for the ANS. Work cooperatively with other ANS divisions to achieve these objective nonproliferation policies.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Apr 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Glass strategy: Hanford’s enhanced waste glass program
The mission of the Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection (ORP) is to complete the safe cleanup of waste resulting from decades of nuclear weapons development. One of the most technologically challenging responsibilities is the safe disposition of approximately 56 million gallons of radioactive waste historically stored in 177 tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
ORP has a clear incentive to reduce the overall mission duration and cost. One pathway is to develop and deploy innovative technical solutions that can advance baseline flow sheets toward higher efficiency operations while reducing identified risks without compromising safety. Vitrification is the baseline process that will convert both high-level and low-level radioactive waste at Hanford into a stable glass waste form for long-term storage and disposal.
Although vitrification is a mature technology, there are key areas where technology can further reduce operational risks, advance baseline processes to maximize waste throughput, and provide the underpinning to enhance operational flexibility; all steps in reducing mission duration and cost.
G. Leinweber, D. P. Barry, J. A. Burke, N. J. Drindak, Y. Danon, R. C. Block, N. C. Francis, B. E. Moretti
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 164 | Number 3 | March 2010 | Pages 287-303
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE08-76
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The electron linear accelerator facility at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute was used to explore neutron interactions with molybdenum in the energy region from 10 eV to 2 keV. Neutron capture and transmission measurements were performed by the time-of-flight technique. Resonance parameters were extracted from the data using the multilevel R-matrix Bayesian code SAMMY. A table of resonance parameters and their uncertainties is presented. Two transmission measurements were performed at a flight path of 25 m with a 6Li glass scintillation detector. The neutron capture measurements were performed at a flight path of 25 m with a 16-segment sodium iodide multiplicity detector. Nine different thicknesses of elemental molybdenum metal samples ranging from 0.051 mm (0.002 in.) to 6.35 mm (0.250 in.) were measured in either capture or transmission. Reductions in resonance integrals were observed when compared to ENDF/B-VII.0 for six of the seven stable isotopes. The largest reductions were 9% in 97Mo and 11% in 100Mo. The one measured increase in resonance integral relative to ENDF/B-VII.0 occurred in 95Mo, and it was significant (10%). The measured distribution of neutron widths for 95Mo and 97Mo are a better match to a Porter-Thomas distribution than those of ENDF/B-VII.0. Neutron strength functions for 95Mo and 97Mo were measured and compared to ENDF/B-VII.0. The strength of 95Mo and 97Mo are within uncertainties of each other. The measured radiation width distribution for 95Mo and 97Mo are compared to those of ENDF/B-VII.0 and to 2 distributions. Significant aspects of this analysis are the assignment of radiation widths, the determination of the transmission resolution function, and the propagation of experimental uncertainties into resonance parameter uncertainties.