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
Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
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.
D. R. Williamson, R. R. Peterson, J. P. Blanchard
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 44 | Number 1 | July 2003 | Pages 169-174
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - Fusion Materials | doi.org/10.13182/FST03-A328
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The capability of using the Z-Machine at Sandia to perform isentropic compression experiments has been discussed by Hall previously. Pressures exceeding 1.5 Mbar have been launched into materials and the pressure wave can be shaped by varying the load current in Z. In this paper, theoretical results will be presented for an aluminum sample in which we obtain isentropic equations of state (EOS) information.Obtaining the isentropic EOS is necessary in many scientific and technological fields for computer simulations. We will follow the procedure outlined by Reisman to determine the EOS. From these steps, we will determine the theoretical EOS of aluminum using data obtained from BUCKY. We will discuss any variances we have in our results due to the use of two different sets of EOS opacity data.The results presented here were obtained using BUCKY, a 1-D MHD code developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. BUCKY is a code that simulates highenergy density plasmas and target yields for Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF). BUCKY was originally designed to study target physics and target chamber designs for ICF reactors but can be used to study Isentropic Compression Experiments.We will describe the procedure used to determine the velocity wave profile measurements that leads to determining EOS. From the velocity wave profile we will be able to determine the isentropic compression equations of state of the aluminum sample modeled.
