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Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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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AI at work: Southern Nuclear’s adoption of Copilot agents drives fleet forward
Southern Nuclear is leading the charge in artificial intelligence integration, with employee-developed applications driving efficiencies in maintenance, operations, safety, and performance.
The tools span all roles within the company, with thousands of documented uses throughout the fleet, including improved maintenance efficiency, risk awareness in maintenance activities, and better-informed decision-making. The data-intensive process of preparing for and executing maintenance operations is streamlined by leveraging AI to put the right information at the fingertips for maintenance leaders, planners, schedulers, engineers, and technicians.
Steven J. Stanley, Kat Lennox, Alex Jenkins
Nuclear Technology | Volume 183 | Number 2 | August 2013 | Pages 260-269
Technical Paper | Radiation Measurements and General Instrumentation | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-141
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The RadBall is a 140-mm (5.5-in.)-diam deployable, passive, nonelectrical gamma hot-spot imaging device that offers a 360-deg view of the deployment area. The device is particularly useful in instances where the radiation fields inside a nuclear facility are unknown, but a suitable decommissioning strategy is required to be planned. The original version of the technology had a number of drawbacks including a relative insensitivity to radiation (at least 3 Gy required), which led to long deployment times, as well as a narrow target dose range (3 to 8 Gy), which meant that the user required prior knowledge of the radiation fields in which the device was to be deployed. The United Kingdom's National Nuclear Laboratory has developed the technology to overcome both of these issues. The developments associated with the new technology are described here, as are some recent tests undertaken at the Sellafield facility in the United Kingdom. The work has resulted in a significant improvement in sensitivity - 150 times - as well as greatly widened the target dose range to between 20 mGy and 50 Gy. The new version of the technology therefore has a much-improved applicability compared to the original technology.