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
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
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2025
Nuclear Technology
April 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Norway’s Halden reactor takes first step toward decommissioning
The government of Norway has granted the transfer of the Halden research reactor from the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) to the state agency Norwegian Nuclear Decommissioning (NND). The 25-MWt Halden boiling water reactor operated from 1958 to 2018 and was used in the research of nuclear fuel, reactor internals, plant procedures and monitoring, and human factors.
Mohammad Abdul Motalab, Woosong Kim, Yonghee Kim
Nuclear Technology | Volume 201 | Number 2 | February 2018 | Pages 122-137
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2017.1414541
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper reports on the improvement of the power coefficient of reactivity (PCR) and minimization of the coolant void reactivity (CVR) of a CANDU6 reactor. A burnable absorber of Er2O3 (erbia) was mixed homogeneously with UO2 fuel in the central fuel element to maximize the Doppler broadening and minimize the CVR of the CANDU6 reactor. In this study, recovered uranium (RU) with 0.9 wt% 235U enrichment was utilized in the advanced CANFLEX fuel bundle instead of natural uranium (NU). First, the optimal loading of erbia was investigated through lattice-based analysis, and its impact on the lattice characteristics was examined. In particular, both the fuel Doppler effect and CVR were evaluated for the RU-loaded lattice. For a more reliable analysis, a three-dimensional (3-D) equilibrium core was determined based on the standard time-average methods for erbia-loaded CANDU6 cores using the Serpent-COREDAX/CANDU code system. The core analysis was based on a hybrid two-step method in which the lattice analysis was performed by the Serpent Monte Carlo code, and the 3-D whole-core analysis was done using a diffusion theory–based nodal code named COREDAX. For the derived equilibrium cores, the core performances were evaluated in terms of the fuel burnup and power profile. Additionally, the safety parameters, including the PCR and CVR, were evaluated for the equilibrium core conditions. The safety parameters of the 3-D whole core were compared with those obtained with simple lattice-based analysis. It was observed in the analysis that Er-loaded CANFLEX-RU fuel provides a 60% more negative fuel temperature coefficient than standard CANDU-NU fuel.