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.
Arkady Serikov, Ulrich Fischer, David Anthoine, Luciano Bertalot, Maarten De Bock, Richard O’Connor, Rafael Juarez, Vitaly Krasilnikov
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 72 | Number 4 | November 2017 | Pages 559-565
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1347470
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper emphasizes the need of estimation of the mutual influence, called “cross-talk,” for neutronic analyses of neighboring diagnostics systems shared by the same ITER port. Using examples of several diagnostic systems inserted inside the ITER Equatorial and Upper Port Plugs, we have demonstrated this mutual influence. Cross-talk effects have been shown by examining the radiation environment inside the port plug in terms of neutron energy spectra and Shut-Down Dose Rate (SDDR) inside the Port Interspace (PI) area. In-port cross-talk was investigated for the diagnostic systems deployed in two Equatorial Port Plugs (EPP) #17 and #8, and for the components of Upper Port Plug (UPP) #3. One example of in-port cross-talks is a gamma shadow effect of the Tritium and Deposit Monitor (TDM) shield block, which affects the SDDR inside the PI of EPP#17. Where the gamma radiation originated from the dominant radioactive sources of the irradiated structures of Core-Imaging X-ray Spectrometer (CIXS) is blocked by the TDM shield. Another example is an influence of neutron streaming along the Fast Ion Loss Detector (FILD) channel on the neutron energy spectra calculated in the Tangential Neutron Spectrometer (TNS) in EPP#8. For the example of UPP#3 with Charge eXchange Recombination Spectroscopy (CXRS-core), performed neutronic analysis identified excessive neutron streaming along the CXRS shutter, which must be reduced by further design iterations.