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Division Spotlight
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
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.
2020 ANS Virtual Winter Meeting Plenary Session Speaker
Dr. Kathryn McCarthy is Associate Laboratory Director, Fusion and Fission Energy and Science, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Her prior positions incude Vice-President, Science & Technology, and Laboratory Director for Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, Director of Domestic Programs for Nuclear Science and Technology (NS&T) at Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Director of the Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program Technical Integration Office, Deputy Associate Laboratory Director for NS&T, National Technical Director for the Systems Analysis Campaign for the DOE Fuel Cycle R&D Program. Dr. McCarthy was involved in various other nuclear fission and fusion programs before that; she was employed at the INL for 25 years. She was a Guest Scientist at the Kernforschungszentrum in Karlsruhe, Germany in 1989, and worked in the Soviet Union with the Department of Energy US/USSR Young Scientist Program (1989-1990), at the Efremov and Kurchatov Institutes in Russia, and the Latvian Academy of Science in Latvia.
Dr. McCarthy is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and of the American Nuclear Society (ANS), and has held multiple ANS offices at the local and national level. Her awards include the an ANS Presidential citation in 2015 for “Leadership and guidance of the Light Water Reactor Sustainability effort….that has helped set the stage for US power companies to be able to make informed decisions regarding subsequent license renewal for their operating nuclear units…,” 2011 Nuclear Energy Advocate of the Year Award (given by the Partnership for Science and Technology), the 2011 Girl Scouts of Silver Sage Women of Today and Tomorrow Award, an American Nuclear Society Presidential Citation in 2007 for “…outstanding service to the ANS,” the 2000 ANS Women's Achievement Award, 1996 International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor U.S. Home Team Leadership Award, and the 1994 David Rose Award for Excellence in Fusion Engineering.
Education
B. S. in nuclear engineering from the University of Arizona
M.S. and Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles
Last modified October 26, 2020, 9:33am EDT
