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
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
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
Norway’s Halden reactor takes first step toward decommissioning
The government of Norway has granted the transfer of the Halden research reactor from the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) to the state agency Norwegian Nuclear Decommissioning (NND). The 25-MWt Halden boiling water reactor operated from 1958 to 2018 and was used in the research of nuclear fuel, reactor internals, plant procedures and monitoring, and human factors.
William Primak, F. P. Roberts
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 86 | Number 2 | February 1984 | Pages 191-205
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE84-A18201
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Data for the differential thermal analysis (DTA) of a borosilicate glass (designed to incorporate high-level nuclear waste and designated 76-68) subjected to radiation damage by its curium content, are presented. The DTA curves for previously isothermally annealed samples can be explained by a distribution of processes in activation energy with a frequency factor ∼1014. The theory of uniform isothermal damaging is extended to the cases of saturating and decaying damaging. The beginning of the observed DTA curves cannot be explained in this simple manner. The theory of the annealing in a thermal spike associated with the recoiling radioactively decaying curium atoms is presented and appears to account for one of the features of the DTA curve. Other features appear to involve annealing during damaging with temperature gradients in the material associated with the self-heating during radioactive decay. However, these do not explain all of the features of the DTA curves, and, in particular, the low initial slope. It is suggested that the possibility of a radiation-enhanced annealing associated with ionization be considered. The stored energy saturates very early in the damaging. If the stored energy is associated with the actinide recoils, they would have to have a 60-Å effective radius of action, about that of 2-keV displaced atoms; if it is associated with the emitted alpha particles, they would have to have a 3- to 5-Å radius of action, corresponding to displacing individual atoms along their paths. Following a comparison with the behavior of ion-bombarded vitreous silica and silicate glasses, it is suggested that the stored energy is associated with fracture of network bonds.
