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Division Spotlight
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.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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
Commercial nuclear innovation "new space" age
In early 2006, a start-up company launched a small rocket from a tiny island in the Pacific. It exploded, showering the island with debris. A year later, a second launch attempt sent a rocket to space but failed to make orbit, burning up in the atmosphere. Another year brought a third attempt—and a third failure. The following month, in September 2008, the company used the last of its funds to launch a fourth rocket. It reached orbit, making history as the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to do so.
Zahra Papi, Farrokh Khoshahval
Nuclear Technology | Volume 209 | Number 7 | July 2023 | Pages 1050-1067
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2023.2167462
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
There is an obvious effort to increase the burnup of used fuel assemblies in the Bushehr WWER-1000 Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) in order to improve fuel utilization. The outcomes of this research could result in an increase in the BNPP reactor cycle length, which would lead to improved fuel consumption. Considering the lack of uranium resources and the planning to use new types of fuel in the BNPP, the use of integrated burnable absorber (IBA) materials is of great importance. An analysis of the performance of various IBAs, including Gd2O3-UO2, Er2O3-UO2, and Dy2O3-UO2, as well as the standard (proposed by the designer) burnable absorber (BA) (CrB2Al) in the BNPP, and their impact on fuel neutronic characteristics has been performed. Five fuel assemblies: one without a BA fuel rod and four each containing standard BA gadolinia, erbia, and dysprosia fuel pins were investigated. The neutronic properties of BAs were evaluated by the infinite multiplication factor, reactivity swing, and power peaking factor dependence on fuel burnup. Gadolinia, with a concentration of 5%, has the greatest effect on initial reactivity with 10 893 pcm and the lowest effect on the reactivity swing with 0.277 Δk among the other BAs, which leads to selecting the most appropriate BA for improving reactor core stabilities and enhancing operational safety. The gadolinium IBA extends the cycle burnup by about 1 GWd/tonne U compared to the standard BA. At the beginning of the cycle, erbium has a more uniform power distribution than the standard BA; however, at the end of the cycle, gadolinia has a more uniform power distribution.