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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.
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2024 ANS Winter Conference and Expo
November 17–21, 2024
Orlando, FL|Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld
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
August 2024
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Nuclear new build procurement considerations
It may seem counterintuitive, but the best time to enhance the ability to support operations and maintenance for a new plant is before construction starts. This is one of many lessons learned by the currently operating nuclear fleet. As construction and startup of many nuclear facilities was completed, it quickly became evident that the ability to efficiently support operations and maintenance was limited. Most of the information necessary to establish and manage procurement of spare and replacement items, maintenance, and configuration of the facilities was unavailable and had to be gathered on a case-by-case, “on-demand” basis. Absence of necessary information and the associated challenges resulted in the need for staff augmentation and multiyear-long projects to develop equipment bills of material and maintenance programs and to perform technical evaluations for the huge quantities of spare and replacement items being requested.
Franck Bachelet, Sébastien Clouard, Aurélie Lis, Rémi André, Christophe Mathonat
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 76 | Number 6 | August 2020 | Pages 699-702
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2020.1766273
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The measurement and characterization of tritium, for its monitoring in processes or its accounting in radioactive wastes, can be addressed with nonintrusive and nondestructive methods such as the standardized (American Society for Testing and Materials C1458-16) large-volume calorimetry (LVC) technique. This type of calorimeter is isothermal and measures the heat flow generated by tritiated objects. The heat flow is detected with Peltier sensors. They are strategically located around the tritiated object to measure thermal fluxes in all directions. This method is matrix independent, the typical relative uncertainty is less than 1%, and the duration depends on the thermal conductivity and the volume of the measured object. The tritium quantity is calculated thanks to the tritium-specific power (324 mW/g) assuming that 100% of the measured heat flux comes from tritium.
This technique was applied for measuring tritiated drums or objects with volumes ranging from 1 to 250 L, more particularly, for the so-called LVC1380, which has been codeveloped and copatented by the CEA and KEP Technologies in France for drums bigger than 200 L. The new technology is based on the measurement of a differential heat flux on a measurement cell and a reference concentric cell without using a symmetrical reference cell. This device enables the quantification of tritium inventories in the waste drum, whatever the physical and chemical forms of tritium. The CEA has performed qualification tests of this calorimeter with ghost drums. The CEA now operates the LVC1380, and the first results in a tritium nuclear environment have been obtained with adsorbed tritiated water on zeolite inside molecular sieve traps (MST). This paper presents the measurement capabilities of this new LVC calorimeter and some illustrating results obtained with MST drums.