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
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
Dec 2025
Jul 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
January 2026
Nuclear Technology
December 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
November 2025
Latest News
AI at work: Southern Nuclear’s adoption of Copilot agents drives fleet forward
Southern Nuclear is leading the charge in artificial intelligence integration, with employee-developed applications driving efficiencies in maintenance, operations, safety, and performance.
The tools span all roles within the company, with thousands of documented uses throughout the fleet, including improved maintenance efficiency, risk awareness in maintenance activities, and better-informed decision-making. The data-intensive process of preparing for and executing maintenance operations is streamlined by leveraging AI to put the right information at the fingertips for maintenance leaders, planners, schedulers, engineers, and technicians.
Steven A. Arndt, Alan Kuritzky
Nuclear Technology | Volume 173 | Number 1 | January 2011 | Pages 2-7
Technical Paper | NPIC&HMIT Special / Nuclear Plant Operations and Control | doi.org/10.13182/NT11-A11478
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
For the past several years, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its contractors have been actively engaged in research to determine the capabilities and limitations of the state of the art of digital systems risk and reliability modeling. This program was developed to assess the capabilities of various modeling methods and to develop regulatory acceptance criteria for the use of digital system risk and reliability modeling in risk-informing digital system reviews. The program investigated both traditional and advanced modeling methods for the evaluation of digital system risk and reliability in the context of including these methods in current generation probabilistic risk assessments (PRAs). The methods investigated included traditional event tree/fault tree analysis, Markov modeling, and dynamic flow graph methodology. As part of the investigation into the capabilities of these methods, we have also reviewed the availability, capability, and practicality of the needed supporting data and analysis methods, including failure mode identification, data generation methods, and uncertainty analysis. The review indicated that for some digital systems traditional PRA modeling methods may be appropriate but that a number of potential issues exist that must be carefully evaluated in modeling these systems. Both the traditional and advanced modeling methods review found that the order of component failures can be important and that simulation either as part of the reliability model or as part of the supporting analysis is needed to determine the effects of combinations of component failures and the timing of digital system failures. Finally, the research showed that better data and models of fault-tolerant features of digital systems and software are needed to support more complete and accurate modeling of digital instrumentation and control for use in nuclear power plant PRAs.