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Division Spotlight
Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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!
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Latest News
ARG-US Remote Monitoring Systems: Use Cases and Applications in Nuclear Facilities and During Transportation
As highlighted in the Spring 2024 issue of Radwaste Solutions, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory are developing and deploying ARG-US—meaning “Watchful Guardian”—remote monitoring systems technologies to enhance the safety, security, and safeguards (3S) of packages of nuclear and other radioactive material during storage, transportation, and disposal.
Elham Gharibshahi, Miltos Alamaniotis
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 196 | Number 8 | August 2022 | Pages 1006-1019
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2035182
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In this paper, the optical properties of lead-thorium (Pb-Th), lead-uranium (Pb-U), and lead-cobalt (Pb-Co) nuclear nanoparticles in a container filled with water are simulated and modeled employing finite element analysis (FEA) for diverse particle sizes. The simulated absorption maxima of electronic excitations of nuclear nanoparticles such as Pb-U are red-shifted from 375 to 380 nm for the first peak, from 595 to 600 nm for the second peak, and from 730 to 740 nm for the third peak with increasing particle sizes from core U: 7 nm and shell Pb: 2 nm to core U: 9 nm and shell Pb: 2 nm. Moreover, the absorption peak of the Pb-Th and Pb-Co nanoparticles is red-shifted by increasing the particle size. The FEA-simulated optical band gap energies of Pb-Th, Pb-U, and Pb-Co nanoparticles were also obtained, and the data decreased with increasing the particle size. FEA-based simulations have disclosed restrictions intended for Pb-Th and Pb-Co nanoparticles size greater than 9 nm and for Pb-U nanoparticles size larger than 11 nm. The simulation method in this research enables the prediction of optical properties and contributes to the understanding and design of Pb-Th, Pb-U, and Pb-Co nanoparticles in the water container before manufacturing and functionalizing them. The work here is of particular interest in the nuclear security domain and in the nondestructive, remote detection of special nuclear materials (SNM) in water-filled cargo containers, whose manual inspection imposes physical and financial challenges.