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
Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy
The mission of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division (NNPD) is to promote the peaceful use of nuclear technology while simultaneously preventing the diversion and misuse of nuclear material and technology through appropriate safeguards and security, and promotion of nuclear nonproliferation policies. To achieve this mission, the objectives of the NNPD are to: Promote policy that discourages the proliferation of nuclear technology and material to inappropriate entities. Provide information to ANS members, the technical community at large, opinion leaders, and decision makers to improve their understanding of nuclear nonproliferation issues. Become a recognized technical resource on nuclear nonproliferation, safeguards, and security issues. Serve as the integration and coordination body for nuclear nonproliferation activities for the ANS. Work cooperatively with other ANS divisions to achieve these objective nonproliferation policies.
Meeting Spotlight
Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Jul 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Vogtle-3 shuts down for valve issue
One of the new Vogtle units in Georgia was shut down unexpectedly on Monday last week for a valve issue that has been investigated and repaired. According to multiple local news outlets, Georgia Power reported on July 17 that unit 3 was back in service.
Southern Company spokesperson Jacob Hawkins confirmed that Vogtle-3 went off line at 9:25 p.m. on July 8 “due to lowering water levels in the steam generators caused by a valve issue on one of the three main feedwater pumps.”
Keith C. Bledsoe, Jeffrey A. Favorite, Tunc Aldemir
Nuclear Technology | Volume 176 | Number 1 | October 2011 | Pages 106-126
Radiation Transport and Protection | doi.org/10.13182/NT176-106
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Determining the components of a radioactive source/shield system using the system's radiation signature, a type of inverse transport problem, is one of great importance in homeland security, material safeguards, and waste management. Here, the Levenberg-Marquardt (or simply "Marquardt") method, a standard gradient-based optimization technique, is applied to the inverse transport problems of interface location identification, shield material identification, source composition identification, and material mass density identification (both separately and combined) in multilayered radioactive source/shield systems. One-dimensional spherical problems using leakage measurements of neutron-induced gamma-ray lines and two-dimensional cylindrical problems using flux measurements of uncollided passive gamma-ray lines are considered. Gradients are calculated using an adjoint-based differentiation technique that is more efficient than difference formulas. The Marquardt method is iterative and directly estimates unknown interface locations, source isotope weight fractions, and material mass densities, while the unknown shield material is identified by estimating its macroscopic gamma-ray cross sections. Numerical test cases illustrate the utility of the Marquardt method using both simulated data that are perfectly consistent with the optimization process and realistic data simulated by Monte Carlo.