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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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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ANS joins others in seeking to discuss SNF/HLW impasse
The American Nuclear Society joined seven other organizations to send a letter to Energy Secretary Christopher Wright on July 8, asking to meet with him to discuss “the restoration of a highly functioning program to meet DOE’s legal responsibility to manage and dispose of the nation’s commercial and legacy defense spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW).”
F. L. Yaggee, G. M. Dragel
Nuclear Technology | Volume 27 | Number 2 | October 1975 | Pages 292-300
Technical Paper | Instrument | doi.org/10.13182/NT75-A24297
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An ultrasonic trepanning technique for use in the radial sampling of small-diameter ceramic fuel pellets takes an initial sample in the form of a small-diameter solid cylinder from the center of the pellet. Subsequent samples are thin-wall concentric hollow cylinders. Radial samples 1.56 to 6.80 mm in diameter and 5.35 to 6.80 mm long have been obtained from 93% dense UO2 pellets and 91% dense mixed-oxide (UO2-PuO2) fuel pellets. Cylindrical samples with wall thicknesses of 0.25 to 0.44 mm can be obtained without difficulty. Diameters and wall thicknesses of individual samples and concentricity between samples can be held within ±0.01 mm, at a sample cutting rate of 0.02 mm/sec. The technique has been adapted to existing ultrasonic grinding equipment located in a shielded glove-box facility, which had been used for less precise ultrasonic drilling operations. The technique is currently being used to obtain radial samples from fresh (unirradiated) mixed-oxide fuel pellets that have been subjected to low-burnup exposure in the transient test reactor (TREAT). The individual samples taken from each pellet undergo burnup analysis using standard gamma-counting techniques. The gamma emitters are the 140Ba-140La daughters formed during the radioactive decay of the activated fuel pellets. The analytical results, expressed as fiss/(g sec), obtained for discrete radial locations provide the necessary information on the radial power distribution within the individual pellet.