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
Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
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
El Salvador: Looking to nuclear
In 2022, El Salvador’s leadership decided to expand its modest, mostly hydro- and geothermal-based electricity system, which is supported by expensive imported natural gas and diesel generation. They chose to use advanced nuclear reactors, preferably fueled by thorium-based fuels, to power their civilian efforts. The choice of thorium was made to inform the world that the reactor program was for civilian purposes only, and so they chose a fuel that was plentiful, easy to source and work with, and not a proliferation risk.
Adam Davis, Donald J. Dudziak
Nuclear Technology | Volume 180 | Number 1 | October 2012 | Pages 139-148
Technical Note | Materials for Nuclear Systems | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-A14525
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Oil and natural gas companies use 241Am sources for well-logging applications (in the form of americium-beryllium neutron sources). Currently, the domestic supply of 241Am is depleted, and industry is now purchasing sources from Russia. The goal of the Americium Recovery Project (ARP) is to reprocess defense-waste plutonium to recover 241Am that would then be sold to oil and gas companies, providing a safe, secure domestic source for industrial applications. Because the primary radiological concern with an 241Am source is external photon exposure, the radiological workers involved in the ARP will perform operations in glove boxes featuring lead-lined gloves. Given the U.S. mandate for the reduction of lead in industrial settings and the costs associated with the disposal of leaded gloves as mixed waste, alternatives are being considered to the traditional lead-lined gloves used in glove boxes. Several composite materials were previously developed and analyzed for incident photons of energies below 400 keV using the Lambert-Beer law to calculate transmission fractions. This research extends the energy range to 10 MeV and uses a source term of interest to the ARP. Further, the Monte Carlo transport code MCNP5 is used to calculate source-normalized doses using two common response functions: H'(0.07) and H*(10). The results and calculations presented in this research are more detailed than previous calculations and present further rationale for the context-specific selection of a given material.
