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Meeting Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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Latest News
The U.S. Million Person Study of Low-Dose-Rate Health Effects
There is a critical knowledge gap regarding the health consequences of exposure to radiation received gradually over time. While there is a plethora of studies on the risks of adverse outcomes from both acute and high-dose exposures, including the landmark study of atomic bomb survivors, these are not characteristic of the chronic exposure to low-dose radiation encountered in occupational and public settings. In addition, smaller cohorts have limited numbers leading to reduced statistical power.
Hsoung-Wei Chou, Chin-Cheng Huang, Pin-Chiun Huang, Yuh-Ming Ferng
Nuclear Technology | Volume 206 | Number 12 | December 2020 | Pages 1919-1931
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2020.1724729
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In recent years, the compound beyond-design-basis accident (BDBA), which combines earthquake, tsunami, or some other severe events to impact a nuclear power plant (NPP), has received more attention. After the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the licensee of NPPs in Taiwan established the ultimate response guideline (URG) that instructs operators to perform reactor depressurization, low-pressure water injection, and containment venting to prevent core meltdown and hydrogen explosion once long-term loss-of-power and water-supply events occur. In this paper, we employed the probabilistic fracture mechanics (PFM) method to evaluate the structural integrity of boiling water reactor (BWR) pressure vessels under URG operation. At first, models of the beltline shell welds for BWR vessels associated with the Pressure Vessel Research Users Facility-Exponential flaw distribution were built for the PFM Fracture Analysis of Vessels–Oak Ridge (FAVOR) code. Then, the thermal-hydraulic data of URG transients for Taiwan domestic BWRs were imposed as the loading conditions. The analysis results demonstrate that performing URG operation will not cause significant fracture probability even at extreme embrittlement conditions. If long-term station blackout occurs due to a compound BDBA, the URG procedures can prevent core damage and hydrogen explosion, while maintaining the structural integrity of the reactor pressure vessels.