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Division Spotlight
Robotics & Remote Systems
The Mission of the Robotics and Remote Systems Division is to promote the development and application of immersive simulation, robotics, and remote systems for hazardous environments for the purpose of reducing hazardous exposure to individuals, reducing environmental hazards and reducing the cost of performing work.
Meeting Spotlight
Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2023)
February 6–9, 2023
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
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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February 2023
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Latest News
Bringing 2022 ANS Standards Committee successes into the new year
By all accounts, 2022 brought many successes for the American Nuclear Society’s Standards Committee, including the initiation of five projects, reaffirmation of 11 current standards, and publication of seven new or revised standards. The entire collection of ANS current standards has been approved or reaffirmed (reapproved without change) by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) within the past five years, keeping ANS in 100 percent compliance with ANSI’s requirement on maintaining current American National Standards. Also, the ANS standards program was reaccredited by ANSI on August 19, 2022, with the approval of a revised set of rules and procedures. ANS’s new rules and procedures take advantage of the opportunity to develop standards-related technical reports that may be registered with ANSI.
Shawkat S. Khairullah, Carl R. Elks
Nuclear Technology | Volume 202 | Number 2 | May-June 2018 | Pages 141-152
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1450014
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
One of the essential concepts being postulated for next generation nuclear power plants (NPPs) that could include Gen IV reactors—small modular reactors—is the notion of resilient and survivable instrumentation and control (I&C) systems. Resilience at the system and plant level will rely on highly robust and fault-tolerant digital embedded devices as a foundation. This paper presents a new self-healing programmable digital I&C architecture, BioSymPLe, inspired from the way nature responds, defends, and heals: the stem cells in the immune system of living organisms and the pathway from DNA to protein. The BioSymPLe is organized in a four-layered approach: (1) cellular layer that includes four sublayers, with each sublayer allocating two functional B cells which represent the building block that executes the local functionality of NPP critical application based on the expression for DNA genetic codes stored inside each cell; (2) tissue layer that embeds eight redundant T cells and eight routing units to facilitate coordination and organized behavior among a network of four cellular sublayers; (3) internal healing layer that monitors the correct execution of functions at the cellular level and activates healing mechanism at the tissue level; and (4) external healing layer using a concept of embryonic stem cells by differentiating this type of cell to repair the faulty T cells. Finally, the BioSymPLe is capable of tolerating a significant number of faults (transient, permanent, or hardware common cause failures) that can stem from environmental disturbances, and we believe it can positively impact the operation of next generation digital I&C systems in NPPs.