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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.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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Colin Judge: Testing structural materials in Idaho’s newest hot cell facility
Idaho National Laboratory’s newest facility—the Sample Preparation Laboratory (SPL)—sits across the road from the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF), which started operating in 1975. SPL will host the first new hot cells at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) in 50 years, giving INL researchers and partners new flexibility to test the structural properties of irradiated materials fresh from the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) or from a partner’s facility.
Materials meant to withstand extreme conditions in fission or fusion power plants must be tested under similar conditions and pushed past their breaking points so performance and limitations can be understood and improved. Once irradiated, materials samples can be cut down to size in SPL and packaged for testing in other facilities at INL or other national laboratories, commercial labs, or universities. But they can also be subjected to extreme thermal or corrosive conditions and mechanical testing right in SPL, explains Colin Judge, who, as INL’s division director for nuclear materials performance, oversees SPL and other facilities at the MFC.
SPL won’t go “hot” until January 2026, but Judge spoke with NN staff writer Susan Gallier about its capabilities as his team was moving instruments into the new facility.
Dr. Wilfrid Bennett Lewis was the 7th president of the American Nuclear Society and a charter member.
Dr. Wilfrid Lewis was born on June 24, 1908. He was a key figure in the development of nuclear power in Canada for nearly three decades, from the end of World War II until his retirement in 1973.
Born in England in 1908, Dr. Lewis earned a doctorate at Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge in 1934 and continued his research on nuclear physics there until 1939. While there, he worked on alpha radioactivity with Lord Rutherford. He also worked on nuclear disintegration by particles accelerated by high voltage and on the construction and operation of the Cambridge cyclotron.
During the war, Dr. Lewis was on load to the British Air Ministry, where he worked on the development of radar. At the end of the war, he became chief superintendent of the Telecommunications Research Establishment at Malvern.
A year later, he agreed to head Canada’s fledgling nuclear research facility at Chalk River, Ontario, where he worked for the next twenty-seven years. Dr. Lewis initially served as Director, Division of Atomic Energy Research, under the National Research Council of Canada. In 1952, upon the formation of Atomic Energy of Canada, he became Vice-President, Research and Development. In 1963, he was appointed Senior Vice President (Science) of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL). He eventually retired from AECL in 1973, and was then appointed Distinguished Professor of Science, Queen’s University.
Convinced that nuclear energy could be used economically for generating electricity, Lewis fostered a collaboration between (AECL) and Ontario Hydro that led to the development of the CANDU reactor, considered his greatest technical achievement.
Dr. Lewis received his B.A. from Haileybury College in England in 1926. In 1934, he received both an M.S. and Ph.D. from Cambridge University in Physics.
Dr. Lewis was the recipient of many awards during the course of his career, including Fellow of the Royal Society of London (1945), Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (1952), first recipient of the Outstanding Achievement Award of the Public Service of Canada (1966), the U.S. Atoms for Peace Award (1967), the Companion of the Order of Canada (1968), Honorary Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University (1971), Royal Medal of the Royal Society of London (1972), and U.S. Department of Energy Enrico Fermi Award (1981).
The W. Bennett Lewis Award was established by the Decommissioning & Environmental Sciences Division of the American Nuclear Society in honor of Dr. Lewis.
Dr. Wilfrid Bennett Lewis passed away on January 10, 1987.
Last modified November 24, 2020, 10:38am CST
