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
Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver 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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Latest News
Dragonfly, a Pu-fueled drone heading to Titan, gets key NASA approval
Curiosity landed on Mars sporting a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) in 2012, and a second NASA rover, Perseverance, landed in 2021. Both are still rolling across the red planet in the name of science. Another exploratory craft with a similar plutonium-238–fueled RTG but a very different mission—to fly between multiple test sites on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon—recently got one step closer to deployment.
On April 25, NASA and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) announced that the Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s icy moon passed its critical design review. “Passing this mission milestone means that Dragonfly’s mission design, fabrication, integration, and test plans are all approved, and the mission can now turn its attention to the construction of the spacecraft itself,” according to NASA.
Lance J. Agee
Nuclear Technology | Volume 142 | Number 1 | April 2003 | Pages 3-9
Technical Paper | RETRAN | doi.org/10.13182/NT03-A3369
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The nuclear industry's current "vision" for 2020 is for growth in U.S. nuclear to a 23% share of generation in 2020. To support this vision, the Electric Power Research Institute's Nuclear Power Division has developed a strategic bridge plan. The major objectives of the plan are discussed. Of key importance is the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff's proposed framework for risk-informed regulations. RETRAN-3D will undoubtedly be used by the industry to support Risk-Informed Regulation, specifically option 3.The reason that RETRAN-3D is the most logical tool to support Risk-Informed Regulation is that in January 2001 the NRC issued a safety evaluation report (SER) on RETRAN-3D. The significance of the SER to the RETRAN community is described, and a list of the most important SER conditions provided.Next, the new and unique applications of RETRAN-3D are referenced. Finally, discussion of the future direction of safety software indicates what the author feels is needed to adequately support both existing plant upgrades and future plant designs.
