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
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
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.”
N. Venkataramani, F. Ghezzi, G. Bonizzoni
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 27 | Number 2 | March 1995 | Pages 62-68
doi.org/10.13182/FST95-A11963806
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper addresses an important consideration in the application of a Zirconium based alloy reactor bed for tritiated water handling, namely the nature and extent of variation of the water vapour conversion rate of alloy during its use. Experimental results obtained from four different investigations are presented to summarily view the water vapour reduction behaviour and hydrogen isotope release by the alloy during the conversion. The ternary getter alloy -[Zr(V0.5Fe0.5)2], commercially known as St 737 (SAES Getters), is found to have good sorption properties for water vapour even at moderate temperatures (400 °C and less), and attractive sorption – desorption characteristics for hydrogen over a large and convenient working pressure range (up to ≈ 4 kPa). The four different conversion experiments performed, namely, (i) by “Fill” method, where the interaction occurred between a defined water vapour quantity and the getter alloy in the absence of any flow; (ii) under continuous water vapour “Flow” conditions; (iii) by subjecting the alloy to high concentrations of oxygen up-take (“Poisoning”) under water vapour flow conditions, with periodic regeneration; and (iv) over nearly the “Full Usage” of alloy where both the conversion and interposed relaxation durations extended up to a few thousand hours, showed that the functional characteristics of the Zr-V-Fe alloy are relevant to “batch” as well as “continuous” handling modes of a reactor operation.