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Division Spotlight
Nuclear Installations Safety
Devoted specifically to the safety of nuclear installations and the health and safety of the public, this division seeks a better understanding of the role of safety in the design, construction and operation of nuclear installation facilities. The division also promotes engineering and scientific technology advancement associated with the safety of such facilities.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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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“Life is a roller coaster. It’s best ridden with your hands in the air.”
Craig Piercycpiercy@ans.org
I find myself saying the expression above a lot these days—to my kids, my wife, my friends, and colleagues. Most recently, I said it to the person sitting next to me after the pilot of our plane—bound for Reagan National Airport a day after the collision of AA flight 5342 and a military Blackhawk helicopter—aborted the landing at the last minute.
I am not sure where I picked up this pronouncement, but I find it to be apropos to the topsy-turvy moment where we find ourselves in 2025. In addition to the first U.S. commercial airline crash in 15 years, we are witnessing a new presidential administration in its infancy playing by the Silicon Valley rules of “move fast, break things.” We’ve seen DeepSeek, the low-cost Chinese AI that reportedly uses 50–75 percent less energy than its NVIDIA-powered counterparts, tank Constellation’s market value by more than 20 percent in one late-January trading day.
Technical Session|Panel|Sponsored by FCWMD
Monday, November 16, 2020|1:00–3:10PM EST
Session Chair:
Kaushik Banerjee
Session Organizer:
Alternate Chair:
Christina Leggett
Staff Producer:
Eileen Cullen (American Nuclear Society)
Spent nuclear fuel (SNF) cask systems are evaluated for approved contents that provide bounding fuel characteristics (design-basis) such as fuel type, initial enrichment, and discharge burnup. The bounding fuel characteristics establish the upper limits of the cask's safety parameters (e.g., dose rates). Due to the wide variation in SNF assembly burnup values and discharge dates, cask systems are loaded with assemblies that satisfy the bounding fuel characteristics with some amount of uncredited safety margin. In this session, we will discuss (1) design-basis and as-loaded analysis approaches and (2) various applications of uncredited safety margins that can be quantified by as-loaded analyses. The as-loaded analysis approach has the potential to significantly improve SNF management and streamline the regulatory review process.
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