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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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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The journey of the U.S. fuel cycle
Craig Piercycpiercy@ans.org
While most big journeys begin with a clear objective, they rarely start with an exact knowledge of the route. When commissioning the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson didn’t provide specific “turn right at the big mountain” directions to the Corps of Discovery. He gave goal-oriented instructions: explore the Missouri River, find its source, search for a transcontinental water route to the Pacific, and build scientific and cultural knowledge along the way.
Jefferson left it up to Lewis and Clark to turn his broad, geopolitically motivated guidance into gritty reality.
Similarly, U.S. nuclear policy has begun a journey toward closing the U.S. nuclear fuel cycle. There is a clear signal of support for recycling from the Trump administration, along with growing bipartisan excitement in Congress. Yet the precise path remains unclear.
Ronald E. Mizia, Tedd E. Lister, Patrick J. Pinhero, Tammy L. Trowbridge, William L. Hurt, Charles V. Robino, John J. Stephens, Jr., John N. DuPont
Nuclear Technology | Volume 155 | Number 2 | August 2006 | Pages 133-148
Technical Paper | Materials | doi.org/10.13182/NT06-A3752
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The U.S. Department of Energy requires nuclear criticality control measures for storage of its highly enriched spent nuclear fuel. A new alloy based on the Ni-Cr-Mo alloy system with a gadolinium addition has been developed. Gadolinium has been chosen as the neutron absorption alloying element because of its high thermal neutron absorption cross section. The metallurgical development, mechanical and physical properties, thermal neutron absorption properties, and accelerated corrosion-testing performance of this Ni-Cr-Mo-Gd alloy is described. A brief comparison is also included of the corrosion performance of this alloy as compared to borated stainless steel, which is commonly used as a neutron-absorbing, structural alloy.
