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.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
Mar 2026
Jan 2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
April 2026
Nuclear Technology
February 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
60 Years of U: Perspectives on resources, demand, and the evolving role of nuclear energy
Recent years have seen growing global interest in nuclear energy and rising confidence in the sector. For the first time since the early 2000s, there is renewed optimism about the industry’s future. This change is driven by several major factors: geopolitical developments that highlight the need for secure energy supplies, a stronger focus on resilient energy systems, national commitments to decarbonization, and rising demand for clean and reliable electricity.
Kaichao Sun, David Carpenter, Michael Ames, Akshay J. Dave, Lin-Wen Hu
Nuclear Technology | Volume 206 | Number 6 | June 2020 | Pages 924-937
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2019.1679564
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) Facility at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) was officially restarted in 2017. In support of its restart project, investigations are taking place into the refurbishment and upgrade of TREAT’s experiment systems with modern technology. In considering augmenting the current TREAT instrumentation, a variety of miniature neutron and gamma sensors that may be able to operate in-core will be irradiated under steady-state and transient conditions. The TREAT instrumentation is typically calibrated at steady state below 100 kW. This power level features a thermal flux similar to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Research Reactor (MITR) at less than 100 kW. Low-power MITR operation was therefore chosen for initial instrumentation benchmarking. Following the MITR runs, the entire test assembly was shipped to INL. Shaped and temperature-limited transients were performed using TREAT’s M8-Calibration vehicle. A total of three test rounds has taken place, including two 1-week sessions at MITR and one 2-week session at TREAT. Overall, successful performance for the majority of the tested detectors is concluded under steady-state and transient conditions. These miniature sensors are capable of recognizing accurate full-width at half-maximum of the reactor pulse. However, compared to operation channels located at the TREAT biological shield, all in-core instrumentations show certain degrees of underestimation of the peak power magnitude.