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
Materials Science & Technology
The objectives of MSTD are: promote the advancement of materials science in Nuclear Science Technology; support the multidisciplines which constitute it; encourage research by providing a forum for the presentation, exchange, and documentation of relevant information; promote the interaction and communication among its members; and recognize and reward its members for significant contributions to the field of materials science in nuclear technology.
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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Nuclear Science and Engineering
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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.
Cheng-Der Wang, Chaung Lin
Nuclear Technology | Volume 176 | Number 1 | October 2011 | Pages 72-82
Technical Paper | Second Seminar on Accelerated Testing of Materials in Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Waste Storage Systems / Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT11-A12543
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A method for the automatic design of a boiling water reactor (BWR) control rod (CR) pattern (CRP) was developed using the rank-based ant system, which is an effective optimization algorithm for a combinatorial optimization problem. The designed BWR CRP followed either the A2-B1-A1-B2 or the A1-B2-A2-B1 sequence in this study. After the CRP was determined, the SIMULATE-3 code was used to calculate the axial power distribution, the effective multiplication factor keff, the shutdown margin, and three thermal limits-which were then used to evaluate the CRP and update the pheromone concentration. The developed methodology was demonstrated using design CRPs for several fuel loading patterns, showing that the designed patterns can be obtained within a reasonable computation time and with an acceptable cycle length.
