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
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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
June 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2025
Latest News
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
Keith J. Leonard, Tolga Aytug, Albert A. Gapud, Fredrick A. List III, Nathan T. Greenwood, Yanwen Zhang, Alejandro G. Perez-Bergquist, William J. Weber
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 66 | Number 1 | July-August 2014 | Pages 57-62
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-735
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The latest generations of rare-earth substituted and nano-doped YBa2Cu3O7-x (YBCO) high temperature superconductors (HTS) developed for applications in magnetic fields are being evaluated for potential use in fusion energy applications. The benefits include increased plasma performance and reduced system cost through more compact and cryoplant-free fusion energy systems. The response to ion irradiation of commercially produced GdBa2Cu3O7-x, (Y,Dy)Ba2Cu3O7-x, and Zr-doped (Y,Gd)Ba2Cu3O7-x samples was investigated. These state-of-the-art conductors represent different design methods for enhanced flux pinning, resulting in different responses to radiation damage. Irradiations using 5-MeV Ni and 25-MeV Au ions were used to examine cascade damage while keeping electronic energy loss levels below columnar defect thresholds. An improved radiation tolerance is found in these new generation HTS conductors. Specifically, the influences of irradiation on the superconducting critical temperatures and the electrical transport properties of the samples were much less than that observed on the earlier generation of irradiated HTS materials investigated by others.