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.
Meeting 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
Jun 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
July 2025
Latest News
The U.S. Million Person Study of Low-Dose-Rate Health Effects
There is a critical knowledge gap regarding the health consequences of exposure to radiation received gradually over time. While there is a plethora of studies on the risks of adverse outcomes from both acute and high-dose exposures, including the landmark study of atomic bomb survivors, these are not characteristic of the chronic exposure to low-dose radiation encountered in occupational and public settings. In addition, smaller cohorts have limited numbers leading to reduced statistical power.
Jiaji He, Zach Hileman, Daniel Homa, Anbo Wang, Gary Pickrell (Virginia Tech), Alexander D. Braatz (ORNL), Brian Risch (Prysmian Group)
Proceedings | Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control, and Human-Machine Interface Technolgies (NPIC&HMIT 2019) | Orlando, FL, February 9-14, 2019 | Pages 238-245
Continuous and real time health monitoring of structural components has become of paramount importance in nuclear facilities to proactively address potential failures that result in the shutdown of operation and/or health and environmental. Subsequently, there has been an intense interest in fiber optic sensing technologies because of their relative tolerance to radiation exposure and elevated temperatures. Nonetheless, challenges remain prevalent with respect to reliability and cost. To address these concerns, while also taking advantage of the fiber optic materials, an acoustic based sensing technique has been developed to monitor phenomena such as temperature to better evaluate the aging and degradation of critical structures such as nuclear containment components, cable insulation, and metal pressure boundaries. Recently, a unique single mode acoustic waveguide design with strong power confinement and relatively low loss was demonstrated in an all-silica acoustic fiber. The “suspended core” acoustic waveguide consists of a pure silica glass core with an inner air cladding and outer silica cladding. In addition, a temperature sensor was demonstrated by monitoring the time of flight in the suspended core. The first-of-its-kind acoustic waveguide structure and sensor represents the first step in the development of a low-cost, reliable sensing system for the deployment of the fiber sensor arrays for the next generation of 3D network monitoring solutions.