ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver 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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Apr 2025
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2025
Latest News
Dragonfly, a Pu-fueled drone heading to Titan, gets key NASA approval
Curiosity landed on Mars sporting a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) in 2012, and a second NASA rover, Perseverance, landed in 2021. Both are still rolling across the red planet in the name of science. Another exploratory craft with a similar plutonium-238–fueled RTG but a very different mission—to fly between multiple test sites on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon—recently got one step closer to deployment.
On April 25, NASA and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) announced that the Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s icy moon passed its critical design review. “Passing this mission milestone means that Dragonfly’s mission design, fabrication, integration, and test plans are all approved, and the mission can now turn its attention to the construction of the spacecraft itself,” according to NASA.
M. Brugger, P. Cennini, A. Ferrari, E. Lebbos, V. Vlachoudis
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 3 | December 2009 | Pages 752-757
Heavy Ion Transport | Special Issue on the 11th International Conference on Radiation Shielding and the 15th Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division (PART 3) / Radiation Measurements and Instrumentation | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A9301
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The n_TOF facility, a spallation neutron source, uses a pure lead target to produce neutrons with a 20-GeV proton beam extracted from the CERN Proton Synchrotron. After 4 yr of operation and [approximately]3 yr of cooling, the present spallation target is damaged and was moved to its provisional storage place in the n_TOF service gallery and will be later transferred to a Swiss repository. In this study, to deal with the removal and storage of the lead target, detailed isotope production and residual dose rate calculations were performed with the FLUKA Monte Carlo code. The study further includes a detailed analysis of three-dimensional residual dose rate fields around the target and through the installation pit. It addresses critical design parameters for the new target and successfully compares the simulation results to recently available measurement data. FLUKA allows residual dose rates to be calculated using two different approaches: a one-step approach that simultaneously takes into account production and decay (built-in) and a two-step approach that allows for flexible geometries between the isotope production and sampling of the decay products (customized). This work shows the clear advantage of performing Monte Carlo calculations prior to interventions and waste disposal and the importance of a detailed description of all the installation components, a complete chemical composition inventory, and a correct irradiation profile.
