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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.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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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February 2025
Latest News
WEST claims latest plasma confinement record
The French magnetic confinement fusion tokamak known as WEST maintained a plasma in February for more than 22 minutes—1,337 seconds, to be precise—and “smashed” the previous record plasma duration for a tokamak with a 25 percent improvement, according to the CEA, which operates the machine. The previous 1,006-second record was set by China’s EAST just a few weeks prior. Records are made to be broken, but this rapid progress illustrates a collective, global increase in plasma confinement expertise, aided by tungsten in key components.
G. P. Sabol, S. G. McDonald
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 63 | Number 1 | May 1977 | Pages 83-90
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE77-A27007
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Alloying additions of 0.5 and 1.0 wt% niobium, respectively, have been added to Zircaloy-4 in an attempt to improve its high-temperature corrosion resistance. Ingots of these modified alloys were fabricated to a 0.76-mm-thick sheet via a processing sequence compatible with commercial tubing production and were given one of four different final anneals. Subsequent testing indicated that the niobium additions had little or no effect on corrosion resistance in 360°C water. In 427°C steam, however, the 0.5%-niobium addition provided increased resistance to spalling, while the 1.0%-niobium addition decreased both cumulative weight gains and post-transition corrosion rates. The weight gains exhibited by the 0.5%-niobium alloy were relatively insensitive to final heat treatment, whereas the 1.0%-niobium alloy suffered a degradation in properties as the extent of the final anneal increased. These trends in corrosion performance were subsequently correlated with the second-phase particle size distributions present in the alloys, the best performance being obtained when the mean particle diameter was <400 to 500 Å. It was concluded that both niobium additions improved the corrosion performance of Zircaloy-4 at elevated temperatures, but that the best performance was obtained at the 1.0-wt%-niobium level.