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Division Spotlight
Education, Training & Workforce Development
The Education, Training & Workforce Development Division provides communication among the academic, industrial, and governmental communities through the exchange of views and information on matters related to education, training and workforce development in nuclear and radiological science, engineering, and technology. Industry leaders, education and training professionals, and interested students work together through Society-sponsored meetings and publications, to enrich their professional development, to educate the general public, and to advance nuclear and radiological science and engineering.
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!
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Latest News
First astatine-labeled compound shipped in the U.S.
The Department of Energy’s National Isotope Development Center (NIDC) on March 31 announced the successful long-distance shipment in the United States of a biologically active compound labeled with the medical radioisotope astatine-211 (At-211). Because previous shipments have included only the “bare” isotope, the NIDC has described the development as “unleashing medical innovation.”
Jacob Dobisesky, Joshua Richard, Edward E. Pilat, Mujid S. Kazimi, David M. Carpenter
Nuclear Technology | Volume 186 | Number 3 | June 2014 | Pages 353-377
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-131
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The primary motivation for using silicon carbide rather than zirconium alloy cladding is its putative improvement in accident resistance, due to slow reactions with water, even at high temperatures. But, fuel management performance will also be an important consideration in its commercial acceptance. Whether backfittable 18- and 24-month cycles can be designed for existing light water reactors, their enrichments, operating characteristics, and fuel costs are questions that the present study undertakes to answer. Also evaluated is the possibility of leveraging silicon carbide's ability to sustain higher fuel duty for increasing power levels and discharge burnups in pressurized water reactors. A preliminary design using fuel rods with the same dimensions as in typical Westinghouse fuel, but with fuel pellets having a 10 vol % central void, has been adopted to mitigate the higher fuel temperatures when silicon carbide is used. This allows design of 18- and 24-month cycles that meet present-day operating constraints on peaking factor, boron concentration, reactivity coefficients, and shutdown margin, while achieving batch average discharge burnups up to 80 MWd/kg U, as well as power uprates of 10% and possibly 20%. Control rod configuration modifications may be required to meet the shutdown margin criterion for the 20% uprate. For nonuprated cores, silicon carbide–clad fuel may have a fuel cost advantage, especially with increasing discharge burnup, provided the fuel manufacturing cost is close to that of Zircaloy tubes. The economics of the fuel cycle also improve with power uprates, as the value of the additional energy generated may substantially exceed the advantage from fuel cost alone.