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
Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2025
Nuclear Technology
April 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
Nichols
The Oak Ridger has published the latest in a series of articles about General Kenneth D. Nichols, the Manhattan Project, and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The series has been produced by Nichols’ grandniece Barbara Rogers Scollin and Oak Ridge (Tenn.) city historian David Ray Smith. Gen. Nichols (1907–2000) was the district engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District during the Manhattan Project.
As Smith and Scollin explain, Nichols “had supervision of the research and development connected with, and the design, construction, and operation of, all plants required to produce plutonium-239 and uranium-235, including the construction of the towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. The responsibility of his position was massive as he oversaw a workforce of both military and civilian personnel of approximately 125,000; his Oak Ridge office became the center of the wartime atomic energy’s activities.”
M. Oyaidzu et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 48 | Number 1 | July-August 2005 | Pages 638-641
Technical Paper | Tritium Science and Technology - Materials Interaction and Permeation | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A1006
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The annihilation behaviors of radiation defects in neutron-irradiated LiAlO2 were investigated by means of Electron Spin Resonance (ESR). It was found that the annihilation of radiation defects consisted of two processes, the fast and the slow processes. The activation energies of them were determined to be 0.14 ± 0.01 eV and 0.58 ± 0.01 eV, respectively. The F+-center was found to act as a trapping site of tritium by comparing its annihilation behavior with that of tritium release. Taking the results obtained in the present and the previous works in consideration, it can be said that the annihilation process of oxygen vacancies is of very important because tritium release from the bulk of a breeder starts just after the slow annealing process becomes dominant. Therefore, to understand the slow annihilation process of radiation defects is an important key to clarify the mechanism of tritium release from ceramic breeder materials.
