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
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.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Apr 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
College students help develop waste-measuring device at Hanford
A partnership between Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) and Washington State University has resulted in the development of a device to measure radioactive and chemical tank waste at the Hanford Site. WRPS is the contractor at Hanford for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management.
David R. Desaulniers (NRC)
Proceedings | Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control, and Human-Machine Interface Technolgies (NPIC&HMIT 2019) | Orlando, FL, February 9-14, 2019 | Pages 1769-1777
The human factors engineering (HFE) validation of a nuclear power plant control room design, or of a design modification (e.g., for modernization), is a complex undertaking that faces many technical and logistical challenges. These challenges include conducting validations that address the diversity of operating conditions, staffing configurations, and failure scenarios that the plant will experience, or must be designed to tolerate. Such challenges must be addressed within the practical constraints of available resources (e.g., test personnel, participants, testbeds, and time). How these challenges are addressed can impact the confidence that vendors, nuclear plant operating companies, and regulatory authorities have in validation results and conclusions. Since 2013, the Nuclear Energy Agency’s Working Group on Human and Organizational Factors has been working with industry experts in control room validation to identify and advance the development of methods for enhancing confidence in control room validations. The most recent product of these efforts is a working group report that describes a general approach and rationale for validating systems through a series of successive, coordinated validation activities. The working group refers to this approach as, multi-stage validation (MSV). This paper summarizes the central concepts and issues discussed in the working group report, including the defining characteristics of MSV and those that characterize an effective MSV implementation. Also addressed in this paper are methods and issues important to MSV implementation and its further development as an approach to the HFE validation of nuclear power plant control room designs and modifications.