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Nuclear Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
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2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
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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
Guoxiu Qin, Qinghua Yang, Jiarui Cui, Honggang Pan, Liangliang Pan, Fan Li
Nuclear Technology | Volume 209 | Number 5 | May 2023 | Pages 707-715
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2022.2151824
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In this study, an airborne radioactivity survey (ARS) system based on an unmanned helicopter platform was designed to satisfy the requirements of geological exploration and environmental radiation monitoring under complex environmental conditions. The system is composed of an unmanned aerial vehicle platform, airborne equipment, and a ground control station, with both NaI(Tl) and CeBr3 crystals as detectors to meet the energy resolution and detection efficiency requirements of airborne radioactivity measurement. The designed ARS system is stable and reliable through the field flight test, and the measurement results are consistent with the existing data and can be widely used in fields such as large-scale uranium resource exploration, nuclear accident emergency monitoring, and environmental radiation investigation.
