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
Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
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
May 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
ANS names new Fellows, award winners ahead of Annual Meeting
The American Nuclear Society extends its congratulations to the new ANS Fellows and recipients of this year’s honors and awards, which will be presented at the President’s Special Session during the opening plenary of the 2024 ANS Annual Conference. Those being honored this year have made outstanding contributions to nuclear science and technology. The full list of awards follows below.
Nicolas Shugart, Benjamin Johnson, Jeffrey King, Alexandra Newman
Nuclear Technology | Volume 204 | Number 3 | December 2018 | Pages 260-282
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1478056
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The ability to create nuclear weapons from 235U and 239Pu makes it imperative to closely account for these materials as they progress through a nuclear fuel cycle. Improved measurement systems provide more accurate estimates of material quantities and material unaccounted for (MUF). This paper provides examples of how two safeguards computational toolboxes can optimize and analyze hypothetical nuclear fuel cycle scenarios. The NUclear Measurement System Optimization (NUMSO) toolbox uses operations research techniques to find optimal solutions to safeguards measurement problems based on minimizing the variance of the estimated MUF. The SafeGuards Analysis (SGA) toolbox employs Monte Carlo techniques to analyze a given configuration of measurement methods and material flows to determine the probabilities of Type I (false detection) and Type II (missed detection) errors. Applying these toolboxes to a realistic fuel cycle scenario demonstrates the capability of NUMSO and SGA to address nuclear safeguards problems. Working in tandem, both toolboxes are able to determine how to quickly improve upon an existing safeguards measurement system and to calculate the resulting improvement in the error probabilities of the system. This information shows engineers not only how to develop new measurement systems but also how to improve existing systems in the most efficient manner.