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
Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy
The mission of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division (NNPD) is to promote the peaceful use of nuclear technology while simultaneously preventing the diversion and misuse of nuclear material and technology through appropriate safeguards and security, and promotion of nuclear nonproliferation policies. To achieve this mission, the objectives of the NNPD are to: Promote policy that discourages the proliferation of nuclear technology and material to inappropriate entities. Provide information to ANS members, the technical community at large, opinion leaders, and decision makers to improve their understanding of nuclear nonproliferation issues. Become a recognized technical resource on nuclear nonproliferation, safeguards, and security issues. Serve as the integration and coordination body for nuclear nonproliferation activities for the ANS. Work cooperatively with other ANS divisions to achieve these objective nonproliferation policies.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Feb 2025
Jul 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
March 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
February 2025
Latest News
Colin Judge: Testing structural materials in Idaho’s newest hot cell facility
Idaho National Laboratory’s newest facility—the Sample Preparation Laboratory (SPL)—sits across the road from the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF), which started operating in 1975. SPL will host the first new hot cells at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) in 50 years, giving INL researchers and partners new flexibility to test the structural properties of irradiated materials fresh from the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) or from a partner’s facility.
Materials meant to withstand extreme conditions in fission or fusion power plants must be tested under similar conditions and pushed past their breaking points so performance and limitations can be understood and improved. Once irradiated, materials samples can be cut down to size in SPL and packaged for testing in other facilities at INL or other national laboratories, commercial labs, or universities. But they can also be subjected to extreme thermal or corrosive conditions and mechanical testing right in SPL, explains Colin Judge, who, as INL’s division director for nuclear materials performance, oversees SPL and other facilities at the MFC.
SPL won’t go “hot” until January 2026, but Judge spoke with NN staff writer Susan Gallier about its capabilities as his team was moving instruments into the new facility.
E. M. Pierce, B. P. McGrail, M. M. Valenta, D. M. Strachan
Nuclear Technology | Volume 155 | Number 2 | August 2006 | Pages 149-165
Technical Paper | Materials | doi.org/10.13182/NT06-A3753
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
To predict the long-term fate of low- and high-level waste forms in the subsurface over geologic timescales, it is important to understand how the formation of an alteration phase or phases will affect radionuclide release from the corroding waste forms under repository-relevant conditions. To generate data to conduct performance assessment calculations for the low-activity waste (LAW) integrated disposal facility at the Hanford Site in southeastern Washington state, accelerated weathering experiments are being conducted with the pressurized unsaturated flow (PUF) test method to evaluate the long-term release of radionuclides from immobilized LAW (ILAW) glasses. The radionuclide release rate is a key parameter affecting the overall performance of the LAW disposal facility.Currently, there are three other accelerated weathering test methods being used to evaluate the long-term durability of glasses: product consistency test, vapor hydration test, and unsaturated drip test. In contrast to these test methods, PUF tests mimic the hydraulically unsaturated open-flow and transport conditions expected in the near-field vadose zone environment, allow the corroding waste form to achieve its final reaction state, and accelerate the hydrolysis and aging processes by as much as 50 times over conventional static tests run at the same temperature.In this paper, we discuss the results of an accelerated weathering experiment conducted with the PUF apparatus to evaluate the corrosion rate of an ILAW glass, LAWAN102, made with actual Hanford waste taken from Tank 241-AN-102 (U). Results from this PUF test with LAWAN102 glass showed that after 1.5 yr of testing, the corrosion rate, based on B release, reached a steady-state release of 0.010 ± 0.003 g m-2 day-1, which is approximately eight times lower than other glasses previously tested. These results indicate that 99Tc is being released from the glass congruently, whereas U is being controlled by the formation of a solubility-limiting phase or phases. These results also highlight the importance of being able to predict, with some level of certainty, the alteration phase or phases that will form and how the formation of these phases may impact the release, retention, and transport of radionuclides from the glass under the hydraulically unsaturated open flow and transport conditions that are expected in the LAW integrated disposal facility.
