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Education, Training & Workforce Development
The Education, Training & Workforce Development Division provides communication among the academic, industrial, and governmental communities through the exchange of views and information on matters related to education, training and workforce development in nuclear and radiological science, engineering, and technology. Industry leaders, education and training professionals, and interested students work together through Society-sponsored meetings and publications, to enrich their professional development, to educate the general public, and to advance nuclear and radiological science and engineering.
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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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General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
Nichols
The Oak Ridger has published the latest in a series of articles about General Kenneth D. Nichols, the Manhattan Project, and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The series has been produced by Nichols’ grandniece Barbara Rogers Scollin and Oak Ridge (Tenn.) city historian David Ray Smith. Gen. Nichols (1907–2000) was the district engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District during the Manhattan Project.
As Smith and Scollin explain, Nichols “had supervision of the research and development connected with, and the design, construction, and operation of, all plants required to produce plutonium-239 and uranium-235, including the construction of the towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. The responsibility of his position was massive as he oversaw a workforce of both military and civilian personnel of approximately 125,000; his Oak Ridge office became the center of the wartime atomic energy’s activities.”
Rei Kimura, Satoshi Wada
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 193 | Number 9 | September 2019 | Pages 1013-1022
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2019.1576454
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A small modular reactor (SMR) is a promising candidate for future nuclear energy; therefore, many organizations are developing SMRs. Some SMRs have a power output higher than 100 MW(electric). This paper, however, describes a much smaller reactor of less than 10-MW(electric) power output: a microreactor. The microreactor shares the same advantages as SMRs, i.e., passive safety, portability, and maintainability. This paper studies a calcium hydride (CaH2) heat pipe–cooled reactor in which heat pipes and CaH2 accomplish passive removal of generated heat, fuel inventory reduction, high-temperature operation, and prevention of a loss-of-coolant accident. The CaH2 allows operation at a core temperature of 800°C, which improves the efficiency of the reactor system. In the case of moderator function loss, hydrogen dissociation may occur at the higher temperature; however, negative temperature reactivity of the hydride-moderated core prevents reactor runaway. The negative temperature reactivity is realized by the poison nuclides 113Cd and 151Eu, which have a capture resonance peak at thermal energies in high-temperature operation. It was confirmed that the proposed method is capable of controlling the reactor over the whole burnup period.