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
Mathematics & Computation
Division members promote the advancement of mathematical and computational methods for solving problems arising in all disciplines encompassed by the Society. They place particular emphasis on numerical techniques for efficient computer applications to aid in the dissemination, integration, and proper use of computer codes, including preparation of computational benchmark and development of standards for computing practices, and to encourage the development on new computer codes and broaden their use.
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.”
J. W. Kim, T. C. W. Wong, F. K. W. Tang, A. Reid
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 4 | November 2011 | Pages 1427-1430
Detritiation and Isotope Separation | Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Tritium Science and Technology (Part 2) | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12699
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
For safe and efficient operation of the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station's Tritium Removal Facility (DTRF), it is necessary to track the amount of operational tritium inventory within the DTRF's process systems. Previous methodology that tracks operational tritium inventory is based on performing a tritium mass balance and does not provide an instantaneous way to determine inventory in the DTRF. The estimate of operational tritium inventory using this method is susceptible to increasing cumulative error of approximately ±2.6% per day as the DTRF continues to operate. Current methodology attempts to compensate for this cumulative error by assuming a constant value for operational tritium inventory whenever Mass 5 is detected by mass spectroscopy of tritium drawoff gas. However, this assumption is flawed and introduces significant error to the estimation of operational tritium inventory. A new method based on temperature of the cryogenic high tritium distillation (HTD) process is proposed which can track operational tritium inventory in a more instantaneous fashion and provides a result with a constant error of ±14% that does not increase over time.