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Division Spotlight
Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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!
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Uncertainty contributes to lowest uranium spot prices in 18 months
A combination of plentiful supply and uncertain demand resulted in spot pricing for uranium closing out March below $64 per pound, with dips down to about $63.50 during mid-March—the lowest futures prices in 18 months, according to tracking by analysis firm Trading Economics. Spot prices have also fallen steadily since the beginning of 2024. Meanwhile, long-term prices have held steady at about $80 per pound at the end of March, according to Canadian front-end uranium mining, milling, and conversion company Cameco.
Takuya Nagasaka, Haiying Fu, Nobuyuki Kometani, Takeshi Miyazawa, Takeo Muroga, Hideo Watanabe, Masanori Yamazaki, Takeshi Toyama
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 72 | Number 4 | November 2017 | Pages 645-651
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1352428
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In order to investigate the effect of post-weld heat treatment (PWHT) and post-irradiation annealing (PIA), electron-beam-weld specimens of the reference low activation vanadium alloy, NIFS-HEAT-2, were neutron-irradiated to a fluence of 7.62 × 1023 neutron m−2 (E > 1 MeV) at 563 K in Belgian Reactor-2. In the present experiments, unexpected oxidation of the surface of the samples occurred during the neutron irradiation, and significantly degraded impact properties of the weld metal, while the degradation was not significant for the base metal. The removal of the oxidized layer by electro-polishing improved the impact properties of the weld metal. Although complete removal of the oxidized layer could not be confirmed, it is revealed that impact absorbed energy of the weld metal with post-weld heat treatment at 1073 K was comparable to that of the base metal after the post-irradiation polishing. In other words, irradiation embrittlement of the weld metal was successfully suppressed by the PWHT. PIA at 773 K and above was effective to recover the irradiation hardening and irradiation embrittlement. Mechanisms of the irradiation hardening, irradiation embrittlement and its recovery were discussed.
