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.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Aug 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2025
Latest News
New coolants, new fuels: A new generation of university reactors
Here’s an easy way to make aging U.S. power reactors look relatively youthful: Compare them (average age: 43) with the nation’s university research reactors. The 25 operating today have been licensed for an average of about 58 years.
Nicholas Klymyshyn, Philip J. Jensen (PNNL), David Garrido (ENSA)
Proceedings | 16th International High-Level Radioactive Waste Management Conference (IHLRWM 2017) | Charlotte, NC, April 9-13, 2017 | Pages 79-83
Equipos Nucleares, S.A. (ENSA) and the US Department of Energy are preparing a full scale test of a commercial spent nuclear fuel (SNF) dual-purpose cask to study the loading conditions applied to SNF under normal conditions of transportation. The test campaign will use a commercial transportation package that is loaded with two or three instrumented fuel assemblies (loaded with surrogate material to represent the mass of SNF) to measure strains at cladding locations and accelerations on the fuel assemblies. Accelerometers will also be used at various locations throughout the full conveyance system to study the transmission of loads through the system and provide validation for numerical models. Preliminary numerical models have been developed to study the transmission of postulated shock and vibration loads through the commercial package conveyance system. After the test campaign is concluded, these models will be validated against the test data and then used to estimate the response of real SNF to the normal conditions of rail transportation loading environment. The current study uses the preliminary models to evaluate the load transmission through the system and calculate pre-test predictions of the fuel assembly response.