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Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
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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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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.
R. J. DiMelfi, L. W. Deitrich
Nuclear Technology | Volume 43 | Number 3 | May 1979 | Pages 328-337
Technical Paper | Fuel | doi.org/10.13182/NT79-A19221
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The microstructural response of fast breeder reactor fuel to accident transients has been analyzed. Based on experimental results, fuel response can be classified as either basically brittle or basically ductile in nature. In the analysis, the type of response is assumed to be determined by the behavior of grain boundary fission gas. The transient variables taken into consideration are the temperature, heating rate, the mean gas content per bubble, mean bubble spacing in the grain boundary, and the stresses resolved normal to grain boundaries containing gas bubbles. By calculating the rate at which a grain boundary bubble grows as a sharp crack and comparing it to the rate of bubble growth by mass transport, a criterion is established to predict the characteristic response of a fuel sample to a specified thermal transient. A swelling threshold time is also determined for the case of ductile fuel behavior. Tensile stresses applied to the grain boundary are shown to enhance brittle behavior, and compressive stresses are shown to enhance ductile behavior. When average values of the relevant variables are extracted from a number of fission gas release and direct electric heating experiments and are used in the above calculation, fuel behavior predictions for these tests are found to correspond well with the experimental results.