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
Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
Meeting Spotlight
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Feb 2025
Jul 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
March 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
February 2025
Latest News
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.
2024 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP) SPeaker
Center for Climate Resilience and Decision Science (CCRDS)
Science Director
Dr. Rao Kotamarthi is Senior Scientist in the Environmental Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory, where he also serves as a Chief Scientist. At the University of Chicago, he is a senior fellow at the CASE and holds complimentary positions as an expert at the Energy Policy Research Institute (EPIC). He has PhD in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering from the University of Iowa and holds a certificate in strategic laboratory leadership program from the Booth School of Business, University of Chicago. Dr. Kotamarthi has nearly 30 years of experience in regional- and global-scale modeling of Air Quality and Atmospheric Composition, atmospheric aerosols and regional scale climate change. His work leverages HPC and applied mathematics to develop models for environmental problems. He has authored over 150 journal articles and technical reports. He serves as a principal investigator for projects funded by DOE on climate and wind energy and private sector entities. He has contributed to the IPCC assessment report 2 and serves on peer review panels for DOE, NSF and NASA. He is the author of a book titled ‘Downscaling Techniques for High-Resolution Climate Projections: From Global Change to Local Impacts”.
Last modified May 20, 2024, 11:53am PDT