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Division Spotlight
Fusion Energy
This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
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
First astatine-labeled compound shipped in the U.S.
The Department of Energy’s National Isotope Development Center (NIDC) on March 31 announced the successful long-distance shipment in the United States of a biologically active compound labeled with the medical radioisotope astatine-211 (At-211). Because previous shipments have included only the “bare” isotope, the NIDC has described the development as “unleashing medical innovation.”
Jeremy W. King, Craig M. Marianno, Sunil S. Chirayath
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 12 | December 2023 | Pages 3125-3137
Regular Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2023.2191579
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Pending the availability of an operational long-term spent nuclear fuel (SNF) repository or other disposal methods, SNF will be increasingly stored in interim dry casks. Casks loaded with commercial SNF may contain several significant quantities of plutonium, so appropriate nuclear material safeguards monitoring is in order. An external remote monitoring system (RMS) developed by researchers at Texas A&M University is proposed to further the current dry cask safeguards regime, which is limited to containment and surveillance mechanisms. In this study, neutron measurements of SNF in dry cask storage were performed with the external RMS at a commercial interim spent fuel storage installation. Corresponding neutron transport simulations using MCNP were conducted with two types of detector responses (tallies) and the results were compared with measurements.
The objectives of the study were to add dry cask measurement data to the literature, to assess the performance of the external RMS in full-scale dry cask measurements, and to investigate the degree to which measurements could be estimated with high-fidelity radiation transport simulations. The study demonstrated that the external RMS can acquire neutron count rate measurements with a relative error of less than 0.5% in 5 min or less through the shielding of a dry cask lid. Additionally, the developed simulation model matched trends in the measurement data to a degree that exceeds results in current literature, and normalization factors were calculated to better estimate the magnitude of neutron count rates.