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.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
Mar 2026
Jan 2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
April 2026
Nuclear Technology
February 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Supporting ANS now, for the future
Hash Hashemianpresident@ans.org
From kindergarten classrooms to national security facilities, each event I attended during the opening weeks of the new year underscored one truth: The future of nuclear energy depends on the people we inspire, educate, and empower today.
I had a busy start to 2026, first speaking at the Nashville Energy and Mining Summit alongside Tennessee Electric Cooperative Association senior vice president Justin Maierhofer to explore the necessary synergies among policy, academic coursework, research, and industry expertise in accelerating American nuclear innovation. Drawing on experiences in high-level government relations and public affairs and decades of work in nuclear instrumentation advancements, we discussed Tennessee’s nuclear renaissance, workforce development, and policy frameworks that support emerging energy demands.
H.F. Lucas, F. Markun
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 99 | Number 1 | May 1988 | Pages 82-87
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE88-A23546
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A procedure has been developed for preparing 3- to 9-ℓ volumes of air under natural conditions with a known concentration of 222Rn to be used for calibrating radon systems. Air is passed into a plastic bag through a standard 226Ra solution (prepared by the U.S. National Bureau of Standards) contained in an emanation flask. This plastic bag retains 222Rn with little loss into or through the bag walls. The mean ratios of the 222Rn in the air at 2 and 7 days after filling to that immediately after filling were 0.992 ± 0.006 and 0.969 ± 0.008, which suggests a rate of radon loss into the bag of 0.4 ± 0.1%/day. The air from the bag was used to calibrate six Lucas chambers. Each chamber was calibrated 11 times with an average fractional standard error of the mean of 0.5%. This value is greater than the 0.2% expected from counting errors alone and suggests that the entire calibration procedure plus the counting system introduces a systematic standard deviation of 1.4% for each individual calibration and counting procedure. The bag and calibrated counters can also be used to determine the 226Ra and the 222Rn content of water. In addition, by replacing the air with other flush gases, calibration factors for gas mixtures other than air can be determined. The accuracy of these calibrations was verified by comparison with four methods, three of which are completely independent. The results by all four methods agree within ±1%.