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Division Spotlight
Young Members Group
The Young Members Group works to encourage and enable all young professional members to be actively involved in the efforts and endeavors of the Society at all levels (Professional Divisions, ANS Governance, Local Sections, etc.) as they transition from the role of a student to the role of a professional. It sponsors non-technical workshops and meetings that provide professional development and networking opportunities for young professionals, collaborates with other Divisions and Groups in developing technical and non-technical content for topical and national meetings, encourages its members to participate in the activities of the Groups and Divisions that are closely related to their professional interests as well as in their local sections, introduces young members to the rules and governance structure of the Society, and nominates young professionals for awards and leadership opportunities available to members.
Meeting Spotlight
Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2025)
February 3–6, 2025
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
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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Latest News
Reboot: Nuclear needs a success . . . anywhere
The media have gleefully resurrected the language of a past nuclear renaissance. Beyond the hype and PR, many people in the nuclear community are taking a more measured view of conditions that could lead to new construction: data center demand, the proliferation of new reactor designs and start-ups, and the sudden ascendance of nuclear energy as the power source everyone wants—or wants to talk about.
Once built, large nuclear reactors can provide clean power for at least 80 years—outlasting 10 to 20 presidential administrations. Smaller reactors can provide heat and power outputs tailored to an end user’s needs. With all the new attention, are we any closer to getting past persistent supply chain and workforce issues and building these new plants? And what will the election of Donald Trump to a second term as president mean for nuclear?
As usual, there are more questions than answers, and most come down to money. Several developers are engaging with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or have already applied for a license, certification, or permit. But designs without paying customers won’t get built. So where are the customers, and what will it take for them to commit?
Douglas C. Hunt
Nuclear Technology | Volume 30 | Number 2 | August 1976 | Pages 138-165
Technical Paper | Criticality Array Data and Calculational Method / Chemical Processing | doi.org/10.13182/NT76-A31613
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The methods commonly used in this country to evaluate the criticality safety of fissile material arrays include density analog , surface density, equilateral hyperbola, albedo, and solid-angle techniques. These can be divided into array unit interaction and semiempirical methods. The albedo and solid-angle techniques fall into the former class; the rest fall into the latter class. A study reveals that interaction methods are useful in treating arrays of arbitrary mesh patterns (e.g., triangular or hexagonal) having only a few units, while the semiempirical techniques are more applicable to arrays with a large number of units. The density analog and surface density approaches are easy to apply but typically require more auxiliary calculations, while other methods are more difficult to use, but more broadly applicable. None of the methods satisfactorily handle nonuniformly spaced arrays, arrays with arbitrary amounts of internal moderator, or “clumped” arrays, i.e., arrays of arrays. Most of the methods have some provision for treating mixed arrays, but these provisions often do not apply to arrays of arbitrarily arranged fast (e.g., metal) and slow (e.g., solution) units.