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Division Spotlight
Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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
Proving DRACO will deliver
The United States is now closer than it has been in over five decades to launching the first nuclear thermal rocket into space, thanks to DRACO—the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Orbit.
Helen Winberg-Wang, Ivars Neretnieks
Nuclear Technology | Volume 206 | Number 10 | October 2020 | Pages 1553-1565
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2020.1712951
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An experiment with a vertical slot with horizontally seeping water with a dye diffusing from below was performed to help validate and visualize the Q-equivalent model, which describes the mass transfer rate from a source into flowing water, such as that in a repository for nuclear waste. The Q-equivalent model is used for quantifying mass transport in geological repositories. However, the tracer propagated much slower and to a lesser extent than predicted by the model. It was found that the tracer gave rise to a small density gradient that induced buoyancy-driven flow, overwhelming that driven by the horizontal hydraulic gradient. This dramatically changed the mass transfer from the dye source into the water in the slot. For the release of contaminants, this can have detrimental as well as beneficial effects, depending on whether positive or negative buoyancy is induced. These observations led to an analysis of when and how density differences in a repository can influence the release and further fate of escaping radionuclides in waste repositories. This and other experiments also showed that laboratory experiments aimed at visualizing flow and mass transfer processes in fractures could be very sensitive to the heating of the dye tracers by the lighting in the laboratory.