ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
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.
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?
Virgil E. Schrock
Nuclear Technology | Volume 46 | Number 2 | December 1979 | Pages 323-331
Technical Paper | Nuclear Power Reactor Safety (Presented at the ENS/ANS International Meeting, Brussels, Belgium, October 16–19, 1978) / Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT79-A32334
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Heating from the decay of radioactive nuclides in shutdown reactors plays an important role in the safety evaluation of nuclear power plants. Although there are many other important uses for this information, the need for more accurate data for the analysis of hypothetical reactor accident scenarios has been the main impetus for recent research activity that has led to a major revision of the Draft American Nuclear Society 5.1 Standard, “Decay Energy Release Rates Following Shutdown of Uranium Fueled Reactors” (published in 1971). The 1978 revised standard, titled “Decay Heat Power in Light Water Reactors,” is based on new experiments and summation calculations. Very accurate determination of the decay heat is now possible for light water reactors, especially within the first 101 s after shutdown, where the influence of neutron capture in fission products may be treated as a small correction to the idealized zero capture case. The new standard accounts for differences among fuel nuclides. It covers cooling times to 109 s, but provides only an “upper bound” on the capture correction in the interval from 104 to 109 s.