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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
2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott 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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High-temperature plumbing and advanced reactors
The use of nuclear fission power and its role in impacting climate change is hotly debated. Fission advocates argue that short-term solutions would involve the rapid deployment of Gen III+ nuclear reactors, like Vogtle-3 and -4, while long-term climate change impact would rely on the creation and implementation of Gen IV reactors, “inherently safe” reactors that use passive laws of physics and chemistry rather than active controls such as valves and pumps to operate safely. While Gen IV reactors vary in many ways, one thing unites nearly all of them: the use of exotic, high-temperature coolants. These fluids, like molten salts and liquid metals, can enable reactor engineers to design much safer nuclear reactors—ultimately because the boiling point of each fluid is extremely high. Fluids that remain liquid over large temperature ranges can provide good heat transfer through many demanding conditions, all with minimal pressurization. Although the most apparent use for these fluids is advanced fission power, they have the potential to be applied to other power generation sources such as fusion, thermal storage, solar, or high-temperature process heat.1–3
Zhang Yingzeng, Xiang Qingpei, Hao Fanhua, Guo Xiaofeng, Xiang Yongchun, Chu Chengsheng, Zeng Jun, Luo Fei, Ze Rende
Nuclear Technology | Volume 204 | Number 1 | October 2018 | Pages 83-93
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1464839
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Compton camera is a promising instrument for nuclear material imaging in arms control scenarios. In planning to build a Compton camera to detect the symmetry of shielded nuclear materials, the energy spectrum of gamma-rays escaping from the Steve Fetter Nuclear Warhead model is obtained using Monte Carlo simulation. Then, a point model is defined for our study. The proposed Compton camera uses a 5-cm × 5-cm × 1-mm double-sided silicon strips detector as the scattering detector and a segmented ϕ5.08 × 5.08-cm NaI(Tl) array as the absorbing detector. How high-energy gamma-rays impact low-energy characteristic gamma-ray imaging is studied. The result shows that high-energy gamma-rays will reduce the imaging accuracy and signal-to-noise ratio. The holistic angle resolution measured can reach 4.15 deg by all characteristic gamma-rays. The symmetry research result shows that the Compton camera can detect the symmetry property of a nuclear warhead with obvious symmetry or asymmetry.