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Education, Training & Workforce Development
The Education, Training & Workforce Development Division provides communication among the academic, industrial, and governmental communities through the exchange of views and information on matters related to education, training and workforce development in nuclear and radiological science, engineering, and technology. Industry leaders, education and training professionals, and interested students work together through Society-sponsored meetings and publications, to enrich their professional development, to educate the general public, and to advance nuclear and radiological science and engineering.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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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General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
Nichols
The Oak Ridger has published the latest in a series of articles about General Kenneth D. Nichols, the Manhattan Project, and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The series has been produced by Nichols’ grandniece Barbara Rogers Scollin and Oak Ridge (Tenn.) city historian David Ray Smith. Gen. Nichols (1907–2000) was the district engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District during the Manhattan Project.
As Smith and Scollin explain, Nichols “had supervision of the research and development connected with, and the design, construction, and operation of, all plants required to produce plutonium-239 and uranium-235, including the construction of the towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. The responsibility of his position was massive as he oversaw a workforce of both military and civilian personnel of approximately 125,000; his Oak Ridge office became the center of the wartime atomic energy’s activities.”
Sudipta Saha, Jamil Khan, Travis Knight, Tanvir Farouk
Nuclear Technology | Volume 208 | Number 3 | March 2022 | Pages 414-427
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2021.1936863
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A global model is proposed to simulate the drying process of used nuclear fuel assemblies under vacuum drying conditions. The transient model consists of a coupled mass and energy conservation equation with appropriate source and sink terms. The classic Hertz-Knudsen expression is employed to resolve the evaporation rate and the associated water mass depletion in the system. Both latent heat of vaporization and residual decay heat are considered as sink and source in the energy conservation, respectively. The model is employed to simulate vacuum drying of spent nuclear fuel rod storage systems. Multistage stepwise vacuuming of the system is emulated, and several parametric studies are conducted to identify their role in the drying process. The predicted temporal profiles show that the proposed model is able to capture qualitative trends of the water removal rate, hence the dryness level of the system. The model prediction is also compared against experiments where the amount of residual water after a standard vacuum drying procedure is quantified. The predictions are found to compare favorably with the experimental measurements.