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Division Spotlight
Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy
The mission of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division (NNPD) is to promote the peaceful use of nuclear technology while simultaneously preventing the diversion and misuse of nuclear material and technology through appropriate safeguards and security, and promotion of nuclear nonproliferation policies. To achieve this mission, the objectives of the NNPD are to: Promote policy that discourages the proliferation of nuclear technology and material to inappropriate entities. Provide information to ANS members, the technical community at large, opinion leaders, and decision makers to improve their understanding of nuclear nonproliferation issues. Become a recognized technical resource on nuclear nonproliferation, safeguards, and security issues. Serve as the integration and coordination body for nuclear nonproliferation activities for the ANS. Work cooperatively with other ANS divisions to achieve these objective nonproliferation policies.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Winter Conference and Expo
November 17–21, 2024
Orlando, FL|Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld
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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Nuclear new build procurement considerations
It may seem counterintuitive, but the best time to enhance the ability to support operations and maintenance for a new plant is before construction starts. This is one of many lessons learned by the currently operating nuclear fleet. As construction and startup of many nuclear facilities was completed, it quickly became evident that the ability to efficiently support operations and maintenance was limited. Most of the information necessary to establish and manage procurement of spare and replacement items, maintenance, and configuration of the facilities was unavailable and had to be gathered on a case-by-case, “on-demand” basis. Absence of necessary information and the associated challenges resulted in the need for staff augmentation and multiyear-long projects to develop equipment bills of material and maintenance programs and to perform technical evaluations for the huge quantities of spare and replacement items being requested.
Avinash Kumar Acharya, E. Hemanth Rao, M. Menaka, Sanjay Kumar Das, D. Ponraju, B. Venkatraman
Nuclear Technology | Volume 209 | Number 9 | September 2023 | Pages 1351-1364
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2023.2199079
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Sodium boiling in a fuel subassembly of a sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor is a very critical phenomenon as void propagation may lead to loss of heat removal and increase in reactivity. Hence, sodium boiling behavior from the incipient stage and evolution of bubble dynamics need to be thoroughly understood toward validating various thermal-hydraulic models pertaining to safety analysis of fast reactors. An experimental program has been taken up at Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research to investigate incipient sodium boiling toward spatiotemporal evaluation of bubble characteristics in sodium. Real-time X-ray radioscopy has been employed for in-sodium visualization of bubbles generated during sodium boiling. The raw images obtained during the experiment were processed using an in-house–developed image processing algorithm that includes background subtraction, noise filtering, and segmentation techniques for enhancement of foreground features. A max filter–based tracker is also devised for clear depiction of bubble boundary and motion with time during the boiling process. Attributes like bubble diameter, nucleation site density, and bubble velocity are determined effectively from the captured images using the algorithm. The paper focuses on the experiment, imaging technique using X-ray radioscopy, and image processing toward depicting the bubble characteristics during sodium boiling in a vertical channel.