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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
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.”
Gary E. Giles, Jr.
Nuclear Technology | Volume 117 | Number 3 | March 1997 | Pages 306-315
Technical Paper | Nuclear Fuel Cycle | doi.org/10.13182/NT97-A35345
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The safety analysis for the Advanced Neutron Source Reactor (ANSR) required the development of a new analysis technique to determine fuel integrity and to assure avoidance of critical heat flux (CHF) conditions. The ANSR is a research reactor design intended to provide the highest continuous neutron beam intensity of any reactor in the world. Reliance on previous safety analysis techniques such as those used in the High Flux Isotope Reactor would result in a design that would not meet the requirements. A more accurate but still conservative analysis technique was developed for the ANSR safety analyses. This technique, the local analysis technique (LAT), relaxed some of the overly conservative assumptions of previous hot-spot studies by using a large number of detailed analyses. The conditions used in these analyses were spread over the possible distributions found in specific designs. This technique was used to analyze several core designs to produce confidence in the fuel plate integrity that could be damaged by excessive fuel temperatures and avoidance of CHF conditions. This approach can be used for other reactor designs and should allow increases in the operating power levels. Alternatively, the LAT could be used to demonstrate increased safety margins for present operating conditions.