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
Young Members Group
The Young Members Group works to encourage and enable all young professional members to be actively involved in the efforts and endeavors of the Society at all levels (Professional Divisions, ANS Governance, Local Sections, etc.) as they transition from the role of a student to the role of a professional. It sponsors non-technical workshops and meetings that provide professional development and networking opportunities for young professionals, collaborates with other Divisions and Groups in developing technical and non-technical content for topical and national meetings, encourages its members to participate in the activities of the Groups and Divisions that are closely related to their professional interests as well as in their local sections, introduces young members to the rules and governance structure of the Society, and nominates young professionals for awards and leadership opportunities available to members.
Meeting Spotlight
Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
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
Jul 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2024
Nuclear Technology
August 2024
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
New company has big nuclear plans
The recent startup The Nuclear Company announced plans this month to deploy a series of nuclear reactors by the mid-2030s using a “design-once, build-many approach.”
The venture-capital-funded firm wants to use proven, licensed technology and target sites that already have some level of licensing approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build enough reactors to produce 6 gigawatts of electricity across the country.
M. L. Dunzik-Gougar, I. J. van Rooyen, C. M. Hill, T. Trowbridge, J. Madden, J. Burns
Nuclear Technology | Volume 196 | Number 1 | October 2016 | Pages 111-120
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NT15-129
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Crystallographic information about layers of silicon carbide (SiC) deposited by chemical vapor deposition is essential to understanding layer performance, especially when the the layers are in nonplanar geometries (e.g., spherical). Electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) was used to analyze spherical SiC layers using a different sampling approach that applied focused ion beam (FIB) milling to avoid the negative impacts of traditional sample polishing and address the need for very small samples of irradiated materials for analysis. The mechanical and chemical grinding and polishing of sample surfaces can introduce lattice strain and result in the unequal removal of SiC and the surrounding layers of different materials due to the hardness differences among these materials. The nature of layer interfaces is thought to play a key role in the performance of SiC; therefore, the analysis of representative samples at these interfacial areas is crucial. In the work reported herein, a FIB was employed in a novel manner to prepare a more representative sample for EBSD analysis from tristructural-isotropic layers that are free of effects introduced by mechanical and chemical preparation methods. In addition, the difficulty of handling neutron-irradiated microscopic samples (such as those analyzed in this work) has been simplified using pretilted mounting stages. The results showed that while the average grain sizes of samples may be similar, the grain boundary characteristics can differ significantly. Furthermore, low-angle grain boundaries comprised 25% of all boundaries in the FIB-prepared sample compared to only 1% to 2% in the polished sample from the same particle. This study demonstrated that the characterization results from FIB-prepared samples provide more repeatable results due to the elimination of the effects of sample preparation.