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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
Sylvian Kahane, Yair Ben-Dov (Birenbaum), Raymond Moreh
Nuclear Technology | Volume 209 | Number 1 | January 2023 | Pages 115-126
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2022.2102847
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Monoenergetic gamma beams (Δ ~ 10 eV) based on thermal neutron capture, in a nuclear reactor, using the V(n,γ) and Fe(n,γ) reactions were utilized for generating fast neutron sources from lead and thallium, respectively, via the 207Pb(γ,n) and 205Tl(γ,n) reactions. It so happens that one of the incident gamma lines of the V source, Eγ = 7163 keV, photoexcites by chance a resonance level in 207Pb, which emits neutrons at an energy of 423 keV. In a similar manner the incident gamma line at Eγ = 7646 keV of the Fe(n,γ) source photoexcites by chance a resonance level in the 205Tl isotope, which emits neutrons at an energy of 99 keV. The cross sections for the neutron emission process were measured and found to be σ(γ,n) = 35 ± 6 mb and 107 ± 17 mb, respectively, with intensities of the order of 104 n/s.
