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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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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.
Mark Burzynski (NewClear Day, Inc.)
Proceedings | Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control, and Human-Machine Interface Technolgies (NPIC&HMIT 2019) | Orlando, FL, February 9-14, 2019 | Pages 653-663
The recent trend for nuclear safety-related instrumentation and control (I&C) applications is that field programmable gate array (FPGA) technology is being used more frequently. Software verification and validation (V&V) activities are used to provide objective evidence that the software and its associated products and processes conform to requirements (e.g., for correctness, completeness, consistency, and accuracy). Standards are used to provide accepted practices and conventions for software V&V activities. Regulators rely on industry standards to support their review of digital I&C systems used for safety-related applications. A key challenge for the review of FPGA-based I&C systems in the United States is the use of IEEE Std 1012-2004 to develop the appropriate software V&V plan. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) endorses IEEE Std 1012-2004 as an acceptable approach for meeting the agency’s regulatory requirements on the V&V of safety system software. The software-centric nature of IEEE Std 1012 is a limitation on its effectiveness in establishing a common framework for V&V processes, activities, and tasks in support of FPGA-based development processes. The use of IEEE Std 1012 to define the V&V requirements for FPGA-based I&C applications will always require the standard requirements to be tailored and adapted to the FPGA technology. The required adaptations limit the usefulness of the standard to support efficient reviews of safety-related I&C applications by the NRC, since adaptations made for each project must be reviewed for technical adequacy. The paper makes recommendations to on the use of IEEE Std 1012 with FPGA technology and to improve the regulatory framework for FPGA-based projects based on a case study involving a digital I&C platform developed using IEC standards.