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Division Spotlight
Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
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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General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
Nichols
The Oak Ridger has published the latest in a series of articles about General Kenneth D. Nichols, the Manhattan Project, and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The series has been produced by Nichols’ grandniece Barbara Rogers Scollin and Oak Ridge (Tenn.) city historian David Ray Smith. Gen. Nichols (1907–2000) was the district engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District during the Manhattan Project.
As Smith and Scollin explain, Nichols “had supervision of the research and development connected with, and the design, construction, and operation of, all plants required to produce plutonium-239 and uranium-235, including the construction of the towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. The responsibility of his position was massive as he oversaw a workforce of both military and civilian personnel of approximately 125,000; his Oak Ridge office became the center of the wartime atomic energy’s activities.”
Chin-Jen Chang, Samim Anghaie
Nuclear Technology | Volume 124 | Number 3 | December 1998 | Pages 265-275
Technical Paper | Radiation Measurements and Instrumentation | doi.org/10.13182/NT98-A2925
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A high-definition gamma scanning method for the near-field measurement of radionuclide inventories in a large nuclear waste barrel is presented. The method introduced is especially accurate for radionuclides with multiple gamma energy peaks. Multiple detectors positioned as closely as possible to the waste barrel are used to measure the radiation field emanating from the distributed radiation sources. The total source activity is reconstructed by using the conjugate gradient with nonnegative constraint method or the maximum likelihood expectation maximum method based on measured detector responses. The maximum measurement error bond and its associated confidence level for the developed gamma scanning system are determined statistically by performing a large number of numerical experiments that take into consideration the counting statistics, the nonuniformity of source distribution, and the heterogeneous density of the self-absorbing medium. The accuracy and reliability of the system are verified through a series of real measurements with randomly distributed 192Ir sources in a 208-litre waste barrel. The results of these measurements are in full agreement with the estimated error and the confidence level that are predicted by the numerical simulation.
