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Division Spotlight
Young Members Group
The Young Members Group works to encourage and enable all young professional members to be actively involved in the efforts and endeavors of the Society at all levels (Professional Divisions, ANS Governance, Local Sections, etc.) as they transition from the role of a student to the role of a professional. It sponsors non-technical workshops and meetings that provide professional development and networking opportunities for young professionals, collaborates with other Divisions and Groups in developing technical and non-technical content for topical and national meetings, encourages its members to participate in the activities of the Groups and Divisions that are closely related to their professional interests as well as in their local sections, introduces young members to the rules and governance structure of the Society, and nominates young professionals for awards and leadership opportunities available to members.
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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Latest News
El Salvador: Looking to nuclear
In 2022, El Salvador’s leadership decided to expand its modest, mostly hydro- and geothermal-based electricity system, which is supported by expensive imported natural gas and diesel generation. They chose to use advanced nuclear reactors, preferably fueled by thorium-based fuels, to power their civilian efforts. The choice of thorium was made to inform the world that the reactor program was for civilian purposes only, and so they chose a fuel that was plentiful, easy to source and work with, and not a proliferation risk.
Vijay K. Veluri, Samiran Sengupta, Shaji Mammen, Sujay Bhattacharya
Nuclear Technology | Volume 204 | Number 2 | November 2018 | Pages 227-237
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1470437
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Coolant activity in the primary coolant system and reactor pool in an open pool-type research reactor is very important in view of operational and radiological safety considerations. As pool water acts as the shielding medium to minimize the radiation dose at the top of the reactor pool, an estimation of the activities of radionuclides in pool water is essential to establish the safety of the operating personnel and researchers working at the reactor pool top. A system is provided to create a hot water layer (HWL) at the top of the pool by supplying water at a temperature more than that of the pool water so that the dose rate at the reactor pool top can be minimized. This HWL system helps in breaking the natural convection current of reactor pool water by maintaining a higher temperature at this layer so that high-density pool water below this layer cannot replace this low-density HWL. Therefore, pool water that is comparatively more radioactive will not be able to cross this HWL by convection. Hence, diffusion will be the only mechanism by which radioactivity can reach the pool top. So eliminating the convection current keeps the activity at this topmost layer of the pool at a minimum value. The estimation of the activity of the radioactive nuclides is required to assess the radiation field at different locations in the primary coolant loop for designing proper shielding requirements of the system. The radionuclides of interest are the activation products of aluminum (24Na, 27Mg, 28Al) and 41Ar. In this technical note, a transient code is presented for estimating the activity of radioactive nuclides in the coolant loop and reactor pool of a nuclear research reactor. The reduced activity level at the pool top is estimated considering the presence of the HWL at the top of the pool. It is observed that purification flow plays a major role on the activity level of radioactive nuclides in reactor pool water. The variation of the activity dose rate at the reactor pool top with purification flow is also discussed.
