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
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!
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.”
Anil Kumar, Yujiro Ikeda, Mahmoud Z. Youssef, Mohamed A. Abdou, Yoshitomo Uno, Hiroshi Maekawa
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 30 | Number 3 | December 1996 | Pages 1118-1128
Neutronics Experiments and Analyses | doi.org/10.13182/FST96-A11963099
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The work reported herein was conducted in response to an ITER Task to demonstrate experimentally that pulsed and continuous operations of a D-T neutron source lead, in general, to differing impacts on inventory of induced radioactivity, on one hand, and to verify calculational methods, on the other. In a series of experiments conducted for the purpose, half lives of observed radioisotopes varied from 1 minute (25Na) to 271 days (57Co). Relatively short pulse lengths, 1 minute to 3 minute duration, were chosen. A pneumatic transport system was employed to transport foils of niobium, iron, aluminum. vanadium, nickel, and magnesium for irradiation close to the D-T neutron source. Three duty factors and two kinds of power levels were used for various neutron pulse trains.
The experimental data was processed to obtain ratio of inventories in pulsed to continuous operation scenarios for each of the observed radioisotope. We observe a large reduction in radioactive inventories for values of t1/2/p (half life/pulse duration) lying in the range of 1 to 10. Interestingly, random power pulse trains show even larger reduction in radioactive inventory: the ratio of inventories drops to ~0.14 for t1/2/p = 3.15 (27Mg) for a duty factor of 20% and a train of 10 pulses, whereas it would have hit a minimum of 0.33 for t1/2/p = 3.53 for constant power level.