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Young Members Group
The Young Members Group works to encourage and enable all young professional members to be actively involved in the efforts and endeavors of the Society at all levels (Professional Divisions, ANS Governance, Local Sections, etc.) as they transition from the role of a student to the role of a professional. It sponsors non-technical workshops and meetings that provide professional development and networking opportunities for young professionals, collaborates with other Divisions and Groups in developing technical and non-technical content for topical and national meetings, encourages its members to participate in the activities of the Groups and Divisions that are closely related to their professional interests as well as in their local sections, introduces young members to the rules and governance structure of the Society, and nominates young professionals for awards and leadership opportunities available to members.
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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
Amanda D. E. Foley, Swomitra K. Mohanty, Glenn E. Sjoden
Nuclear Technology | Volume 209 | Number 2 | February 2023 | Pages 228-243
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2022.2131972
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) spectrometers have been considered for objectives and missions with variable ambient temperatures. Spectrometer-grade crystals of various sizes have been studied under conditions as low as −40°C for 2 × 2 × 2 and 5 × 5 × 2-mm3 crystals, and −10°C for 5 × 5 × 5-mm3 crystals for resolution improvement spanning 5.9-, 59.5-, and 122-keV photo peak energies. It is unclear from previously published data if cooling the spectrometer-grade crystals beyond −10°C results in increased resolution improvement or if the effect occurs with higher-energy photo peaks and trends among multiple crystals from the same manufacturer. Therefore, we acquired two CZT crystals from Kromek and cooled them in an insulated box to −25°C. Our measurements were performed every 5°C, and tested with 241Am or 241Am/152Eu mixed sources. The 241Am peaks were compared for both crystals, and the higher-energy resolution changes were explored using the mixed source.
Overall, at 59.5 keV, both crystals yielded 3% to 4% resolution improvement for the cooling cycle and 6% improvement during the warming cycle. Resolution performance varied between the two tested crystals, and each had a different temperature where we observed optimum resolution. The 121.8-keV peak resolution improved by 1.2% for the cooling cycle and 3.6% for the warming cycle. There were no discernable resolution increases or changes for the two higher-energy peaks, 224.7 and 334.3 keV, respectively. Slight cooling of the CZT crystals can increase resolution performance by 4% in the lower-energy region.
