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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!
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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.
Yang-Hyun Koo, Jae-Ho Yang, Jeong-Yong Park, Keon-Sik Kim, Hyun-Gil Kim, Dong-Joo Kim, Yang-Il Jung, Kun-Woo Song
Nuclear Technology | Volume 186 | Number 2 | May 2014 | Pages 295-304
Technical Note | Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-89
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Fukushima accident has had a tremendous impact on Japan and the rest of the world in the areas of public health, economy, and nuclear energy policy. Thus, international consensus has been reached that inherent tolerance of nuclear fuel to severe accidents needs to be increased significantly to prevent accidents or to mitigate their consequences. In this respect, several countries have started to develop accident-tolerant fuel (ATF) that can tolerate loss of active cooling for a considerably longer time period than current fuels, while maintaining or improving performance during normal operations and operational transients and also enhancing fuel safety for beyond-design-basis events. The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute is also developing ATF: surface-coated Zr cladding and metal-ceramic hybrid cladding for the purpose of suppressing hydrogen generation during severe accidents, and microcell UO2 pellets to enhance the retention of highly radioactive and corrosive fission products such as Cs and I, where all UO2 grains are enveloped by thin cell walls that act as chemical traps or physical barriers for the movement of fission products. When the screening of developing fuel materials has been performed through various out-of-pile tests, irradiation tests of the selected materials will be carried out in a research reactor to demonstrate their enhanced accident tolerance.