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
Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy
The mission of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division (NNPD) is to promote the peaceful use of nuclear technology while simultaneously preventing the diversion and misuse of nuclear material and technology through appropriate safeguards and security, and promotion of nuclear nonproliferation policies. To achieve this mission, the objectives of the NNPD are to: Promote policy that discourages the proliferation of nuclear technology and material to inappropriate entities. Provide information to ANS members, the technical community at large, opinion leaders, and decision makers to improve their understanding of nuclear nonproliferation issues. Become a recognized technical resource on nuclear nonproliferation, safeguards, and security issues. Serve as the integration and coordination body for nuclear nonproliferation activities for the ANS. Work cooperatively with other ANS divisions to achieve these objective nonproliferation policies.
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.
O. Ågren, V. E. Moiseenko, K. Noack, A. Hagnestål
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 59 | Number 1 | January 2011 | Pages 166-169
doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A11599
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A comparatively small mirror fusion hybrid device may be developed for industrial transmutation and energy production from spent nuclear waste. This opportunity ensues from the large fission to fusion energy multiplication ratio, Qr = Pfis/Pfus 150, in a subcritical fusion device surrounded by a fission mantle with the neutron multiplicity keff [approximately equal] 0.97. The geometry of mirror machines is almost perfectly suited for a hybrid reactor application, and the requirements for plasma confinement can be dramatically relaxed in correspondence with a high value of Qr. Steady state power production in a mirror hybrid seems possible if the electron temperature reaches 500 eV. A moderately low fusion Q factor, the ratio of fusion power to the power necessary to sustain the plasma, could be sufficient, i.e. Q [approximately equal] 0.15. Theoretical predictions for the straight field line mirror (SFLM) concept are presented, including results from radio frequency heating, neutron Monte Carlo and magnetic coil computations. Means to achieve an electron temperature of 500 eV are briefly discussed. The basic study considers a 25 m long confinement region with 40 cm plasma radius with 10 MW fusion power and a power production of 1.5 GW thermal.
