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Division Spotlight
Young Members Group
The Young Members Group works to encourage and enable all young professional members to be actively involved in the efforts and endeavors of the Society at all levels (Professional Divisions, ANS Governance, Local Sections, etc.) as they transition from the role of a student to the role of a professional. It sponsors non-technical workshops and meetings that provide professional development and networking opportunities for young professionals, collaborates with other Divisions and Groups in developing technical and non-technical content for topical and national meetings, encourages its members to participate in the activities of the Groups and Divisions that are closely related to their professional interests as well as in their local sections, introduces young members to the rules and governance structure of the Society, and nominates young professionals for awards and leadership opportunities available to members.
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.”
Sandra Poumerouly, Gérald Rimpault
Nuclear Technology | Volume 174 | Number 1 | April 2011 | Pages 1-17
Technical Paper | Accident Analysis and Consequences | doi.org/10.13182/NT11-A11675
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Core disruptive accidents in fast reactors need to be monitored carefully since they may lead to possible criticality configurations. However, the worst-case scenario may have small probability occurrences, but the proof of it requires multidisciplinary studies. Even with the upgrade in computer performance, calculations would require several months on several parallel computers. Accurate calculations with short running times are thus required. Updating the neutronics module of SIMMER set up in the 1970s was therefore carried out with the help of routines able to handle probability tables for generating broad group libraries. The use of such libraries together with new SIMMER options is now able to produce reliable results in all sorts of situations while maintaining reduced calculation times.Indeed, until now, neutronics calculations from SIMMER gave results quite far from ERANOS ones (differences in reactivity larger than 1.5 $). The discrepancies were mainly due to the libraries used. As a consequence, in 2000, an ERANOS module (BISIM) was created to generate SIMMER nuclear data libraries (for both cross sections and self-shielding factors) from the ERANOS nuclear data file, thereby reducing the major source of inconsistencies. Other improvements were added by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, on the way of calculating the transport cross section and on the library group scheme so as to better calculate the k-effective within a reasonable time frame, but also at the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives on the -effective calculation. A new option (using the Keepin data) was implemented in 2010 in SIMMER.Once all these optimizations were carried out, a comparison between the SIMMER (III for two dimensions and IV for three dimensions) and ERANOS results was performed for a series of disruptive and representative configurations. While the computation time has not changed significantly, the differences on k-effective between ERANOS reference route results and SIMMER 16 energy-group calculations were drastically reduced by [approximately]0.8 $.