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
Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
Meeting Spotlight
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Aug 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
October 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2024
Latest News
New laws offer nuclear industry incentives for existing power plant uprates
This year, the U.S. nuclear industry received a much-needed economic boost that could help preserve operating nuclear power plants and incentivize upgrades that extend their lifespan and power output.
Signed into law in 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act offers production tax credits (PTCs) for existing nuclear power plants and either PTCs or investment tax credits (ITCs) for new carbon-free generation. These credits could make power uprates—increasing the maximum power level at which a commercial plant may operate—a much more appealing option for utilities.
Enrique Castillo, Cristina Solares, Patricia Gómez
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 126 | Number 2 | June 1997 | Pages 158-167
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE97-A24469
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new method is presented for propagating uncertainties in complex nuclear power plant safety system fault tree models. The method is especially useful for estimating extreme percentiles and high-probability one-sided confidence intervals of the system unavailability. Likelihood weighing simulation methods, which assign a score to each sample point (x1,... ,xn) to compensate for the differences between the sample and the parent distributions, are used to directly simulate the adequate tail distribution of the probability of the fault tree top event. The polynomial structure of the probability of the top event is exploited to sequentially find upper and lower bounds to simulate each of the basic variables, without the need to invert the polynomial expression. The performance of the proposed method is spectacular when compared with the standard Monte Carlo simulation for tails. Finally, one example of application to a real case is used to illustrate the whole simulation process.