ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Apr 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
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.
Hangbok Choi, Myunghee Choi, Ryan Hon
Nuclear Technology | Volume 205 | Number 3 | March 2019 | Pages 486-505
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1495001
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Calculations have been conducted for the KRITZ-2 (KRITZ-LWR-RESR-001/002/003) and the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) (FFTF-LMFR-RESR-001) Nuclear Energy Agency benchmark problems using the PARCS reactor simulation code with lattice parameters generated by the DRAGON reactor physics code and with the MCNP6 Monte Carlo code. The benchmark analyses examined the DRAGON cross-section library, PARCS energy group structure, DRAGON fuel assembly modeling, and nuclide self-shielding effect. For KRITZ-2, the PARCS 2-group core calculations with a DRAGON 361-group library based on ENDF/B-VII.1 reproduced the benchmark keff with a root-mean-square (rms) error of 0.19% δk. DRAGON/PARCS also predicted the fission rates within 5%. The MCNP results are consistent with the DRAGON/PARCS results but with a small underestimation when compared to the benchmark value. For FFTF, the PARCS 33-group core calculations underpredicted the benchmark keff by 0.19% δk while the MCNP calculation overpredicted the benchmark keff by 0.23% δk. The neutron spectrum distributions calculated by PARCS and MCNP are consistent with measured data. Since the energy boundary values of the measured neutron spectrum are not available, the calculated spectra could not be directly compared to the measured value. The DRAGON/PARCS solution to a numerical benchmark of a gas-cooled fast reactor (GFR), i.e., the Energy Multiplier Module, predicted the keff and assembly power with 0.46% δk and 3.7% rms error, respectively, when compared to the MCNP simulation. The benchmark calculations of the selected thermal and fast reactors have shown that DRAGON/PARCS simulates small reactor cores with good accuracy.