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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.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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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Colin Judge: Testing structural materials in Idaho’s newest hot cell facility
Idaho National Laboratory’s newest facility—the Sample Preparation Laboratory (SPL)—sits across the road from the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF), which started operating in 1975. SPL will host the first new hot cells at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) in 50 years, giving INL researchers and partners new flexibility to test the structural properties of irradiated materials fresh from the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) or from a partner’s facility.
Materials meant to withstand extreme conditions in fission or fusion power plants must be tested under similar conditions and pushed past their breaking points so performance and limitations can be understood and improved. Once irradiated, materials samples can be cut down to size in SPL and packaged for testing in other facilities at INL or other national laboratories, commercial labs, or universities. But they can also be subjected to extreme thermal or corrosive conditions and mechanical testing right in SPL, explains Colin Judge, who, as INL’s division director for nuclear materials performance, oversees SPL and other facilities at the MFC.
SPL won’t go “hot” until January 2026, but Judge spoke with NN staff writer Susan Gallier about its capabilities as his team was moving instruments into the new facility.
Andreas Ikonomopoulos, Miltiadis Alamaniotis, Stylianos Chatzidakis, Lefteri H. Tsoukalas
Nuclear Technology | Volume 182 | Number 1 | April 2013 | Pages 1-12
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-A15821
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A novel machine learning approach for nuclear power plant modeling and state identification is presented together with its test results using data from the Loss-of-Fluid Test experimental facility. The approach exploits Gaussian processes whose principal function is to tackle the temporal problem of forecasting the actual system state in the varying environment of a nuclear reactor facility that undergoes successive overcooling transients. The approach fuses independent Gaussian process expert predictions to provide a single recommendation to the plant operators in a form that is suitable to appear on a decision support system screen. A variety of test cases are developed to explore the validity and relevance of Gaussian processes. The proposed implementation is examined with various predictor variables under different conditions, and the results obtained are in accordance with model expectations.