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Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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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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AI at work: Southern Nuclear’s adoption of Copilot agents drives fleet forward
Southern Nuclear is leading the charge in artificial intelligence integration, with employee-developed applications driving efficiencies in maintenance, operations, safety, and performance.
The tools span all roles within the company, with thousands of documented uses throughout the fleet, including improved maintenance efficiency, risk awareness in maintenance activities, and better-informed decision-making. The data-intensive process of preparing for and executing maintenance operations is streamlined by leveraging AI to put the right information at the fingertips for maintenance leaders, planners, schedulers, engineers, and technicians.
J. Hoover, G. K. Leaf, D. A. Meneley, P. M. Walker
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 45 | Number 1 | July 1971 | Pages 52-65
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE71-1
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A fuel cycle analysis system is presented for performing fast reactor fuel cycle calculations. The REBUS system, an acronym for REactor BUrnup System, solves for the infinite time (equilibrium) operating conditions of a recycle system under fixed conditions. REBUS obtains the feed enrichments, the burn step (operating) time, and the control requirements which satisfy the constraint on the fuel discharge burnup, give the desired unpoisoned multiplication constant at some specified time during reactor operation, and maintain criticality. REBUS includes models of both the in-reactor fuel management and the external cycle. The in-reactor fuel management model permits any physically realizable fuel management scheme. In the external cycle, reprocessing and sale of the discharged fuel and refabrication with charge fuel makeup from reprocessing plants and/or external feed supplies can be studied. The isotope chain matrix may contain β−, β+, and α-decay terms as well as (n, γ), (n, p), (n, α), (n, 2n), and (n, f) reactions. The REBUS system is comprised of a neutronics model and a fuel cycle model. The fuel cycle model contains no geometric information so that any neutronics solution can be used (zero to three dimensional, diffusion or transport theory, direct or synthesis). REBUS has been operated with one- and two-dimensional diffusion theory neutronics models up to the present time.