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
Human Factors, Instrumentation & Controls
Improving task performance, system reliability, system and personnel safety, efficiency, and effectiveness are the division's main objectives. Its major areas of interest include task design, procedures, training, instrument and control layout and placement, stress control, anthropometrics, psychological input, and motivation.
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.
A. M. Reda
Nuclear Technology | Volume 194 | Number 3 | June 2016 | Pages 400-405
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NT15-92
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An investigation room to interrogate packages and baggage at airports, based on a neutron-induced gamma-ray method, was designed using the MCNP5 Monte Carlo radiation transport code. A pulsed neutron generator source of interval time responses 10 μs turned on and 100 μs turned off was used for the investigation. Gamma-ray emissions in the forward, scattering angle of 90 deg, and backward directions were detected in the two cases of neutron generator (turned on/turned off). The detected data revealed that gamma rays in the forward direction have a signal-to-background ratio higher than the other positions. In addition, thermal neutron capture detected in the turned-off interval showed larger numbers of good signal-to-background ratio than that in the turned-on interval. The results show that the detection of gamma rays induced with a pulsed neutron source can be applied as a basic technique in airports to identify smuggled illicit materials.
