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.”
Boris V. Ivanov, V. S. Pantuev, A. N. Bukin, A. A. Semenov, M. I. Belyakov, A. I. Belesev, E. V. Geraskin, N. A. Ionov, V. I. Parfenov
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 78 | Number 1 | January 2022 | Pages 44-55
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2021.1951533
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper describes the methods and presents the results of the “Troitsk Nu-mass” experiment spectrometer cleanup after the in\ner volume (40 m3) and surfaces (160 m2) were contaminated by 5.2 GBq of tritium. The Troitsk Nu-mass experiment of the Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow) is designed to measure the spectrum of electrons from tritium decays in order to search for hypothetical particles—sterile neutrinos. Due to some equipment failures, the spectrometer internal volume was contaminated with tritium. The contamination made measurements impossible, and the research program stopped. Different methods were used for cleanup: vacuum extraction, hydrogen soaks, and water vapor soaks. As a result of detritiation, the background level of the main detector of the Troitsk Nu-mass spectrometer was reduced approximately by more than ten times, which made it possible to resume work. The results are consistent with the literature data obtained earlier for normal conditions in the air and can be used for detritiation of similar installations.
