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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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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.”
William Chuirazzi, Aaron Craft, Burkhard Schillinger, Nicholas Boulton, Glen Papaioannou, Amanda Smolinski, Kyrone Riley, Andrew Smolinski, Michael Ruddell
Nuclear Technology | Volume 208 | Number 3 | March 2022 | Pages 455-467
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2021.1905471
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Scintillator screens consisting of a dysprosium neutron converter and various scintillator materials were tested in the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum Forschungsreaktor München II (FRM II) ANTARES cold neutron beam with the goal of finding a suitable screen for digital transfer method neutron radiography. This work explores the cold neutron response of 16 scintillator screens, 7 of which were previously tested with thermal neutrons. Light yield, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and spatial resolution were measured to compare the scintillator screens and determine which were best suited for digital transfer method neutron radiography. Screens with a zinc sulfide (ZnS:Cu) scintillator were most suitable for digital transfer method radiography based on light output, spatial resolution, SNR, and gamma-ray insensitivity. Spatial resolutions between 65 and 220 μm were measured. The top-performing screens were then used to demonstrate the feasibility of a new digital transfer method neutron radiography to image highly radioactive (8.84 Sv/h at ≈1 cm) nuclear fuel at Idaho National Laboratory’s Neutron Radiography reactor (NRAD). These results suggest that digital transfer method neutron radiography can be used to indirectly image highly radioactive objects and/or use neutron beams with a large gamma-ray content on a timescale of ~10 min/image (~144 images/day), much faster than the >10 h required using the current transfer method with film (limited to ~14 radiographs/day at NRAD).
