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
Mathematics & Computation
Division members promote the advancement of mathematical and computational methods for solving problems arising in all disciplines encompassed by the Society. They place particular emphasis on numerical techniques for efficient computer applications to aid in the dissemination, integration, and proper use of computer codes, including preparation of computational benchmark and development of standards for computing practices, and to encourage the development on new computer codes and broaden their use.
Meeting Spotlight
ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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
Mar 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
April 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Nuclear materials testing project brings U.S. and U.K. expertise together
As nations look to nuclear energy as a source of reliable electricity and heat, researchers and industry are developing a new generation of nuclear reactors to fill the need. These advanced nuclear reactors will provide safe, efficient, and economical power that go beyond what the current large light water reactors can do.
But before large-scale deployment of advanced reactors, researchers need to understand and test the safety and performance of the technologies—especially the coolants and materials—that make them possible.
Now, the United States and the United Kingdom have teamed up to test hundreds of advanced nuclear materials.
Nandan G. Chandregowda, Sunil S. Chirayath, William S. Charlton, Young Ham, Shiva Sitaraman, Gil Hoon Ahn
Nuclear Technology | Volume 184 | Number 3 | December 2013 | Pages 320-332
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-A24989
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power has built a new modular type of CANDU spent fuel bundle dry storage facility, MACSTOR KN-400, at the Wolsong reactor site in the Republic of Korea. Four CANDU reactors operate at the Wolsong site, and the MACSTOR KN-400 has the capacity to store up to 24 000 CANDU spent fuel bundles. The International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards regulations demand an effective method for spent-fuel re-verification at the MACSTOR KN-400 facility in the event of any loss of continuity of knowledge. A radiation signal-dependent spent-fuel re-verification design of the MACSTOR KN-400 is scrutinized through mathematical model development and Monte Carlo radiation transport simulations using the state-of-the-art computer code MCNP. Both gamma and neutron transport simulations for various spent fuel bundle diversion scenarios are carried out for the central and corner re-verification tube structures. The CANDU spent fuel bundles with a burnup of 7500 MWd/tonne U (burned at a specific power of 28.39 MW/tonne) and 10 years of cooling time are considered for the radiation source term. Results of the gamma transport simulations incorporating cadmium-zinc-telluride detectors inside the re-verification tube show that spent fuel bundles diverted from the inner locations of the storage basket cannot be detected by observing a gamma radiation signal change. Neutron transport simulations consisting of a 3He detector inside the re-verification tube show that certain spent fuel bundle diversions could be detected. However, inverse MCNP neutron transport simulations show that the possibility of detecting diversion of [approximately]67% of spent fuel bundles stored in the basket region on the opposite side from the collimator of the re-verification tube is small, assuming a neutron detection counting time of 1 h per re-verification tube. It is also observed that the nondetection probability for most of the diversion scenarios considered is large. Nondetection probability here is defined as the probability of not detecting the diversion of spent fuel bundles from the baskets by observing radiation signal reduction from the removal of the bundles. Containment and surveillance methods are being employed for safeguards purposes at the facility, supplemented by periodic axial profile fingerprinting. However, since the nondetection probability is large for most scenarios, the facility should consider alternatives to this method in case loss of continuity of knowledge occurs.