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
Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
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.
Otasowie Osifo, Staffan Jacobsson Svärd, Ane Håkansson, Christofer Willman, Anders Bäcklin, Tobias Lundqvist
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 160 | Number 1 | September 2008 | Pages 129-143
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE160-129TN
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Decay heat is an important design parameter at the future Swedish spent nuclear fuel repository. It will be calculated for each fuel assembly using dedicated depletion codes, based on the operator-declared irradiation history. However, experimental verification of the calculated decay heat is also anticipated. Such verification may be obtained by gamma scanning using the established correlation between the decay heat and the emitted gamma-ray intensity from 137Cs. In this procedure, the correctness of the operator-declared fuel parameters can be verified.Recent achievements of the gamma-scanning technique include the development of a dedicated spectroscopic data-acquisition system and the use of an advanced calorimeter for calibration. Using this system, the operator-declared burnup and cooling time of 31 pressurized water reactor fuel assemblies was verified experimentally to within 2.2% (1) and 1.9% (1), respectively. The measured decay heat agreed with calorimetric data within 2.3% (1), whereby the calculated decay heat was verified within 2.3% (1). The measuring time per fuel assembly was ~15 min.In case reliable operator-declared data are not available, the gamma-scanning technique also provides a means to independently measure the decay heat. The results obtained in this procedure agreed with calorimetric data within 2.7% (1).
