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Division Spotlight
Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
Meeting Spotlight
Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
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
Vogtle-3 shuts down for valve issue
One of the new Vogtle units in Georgia was shut down unexpectedly on Monday last week for a valve issue that has since been investigated and repaired. According to multiple local news outlets, Georgia Power reported on July 17 that Unit 3 was back in service.
Southern Company spokesperson Jacob Hawkins confirmed that Vogtle-3 went off line at 9:25 p.m. local time on July 8 “due to lowering water levels in the steam generators caused by a valve issue on one of the three main feedwater pumps.”
A. Serikov, U. Fischer, L. Mercatali, P. Baeten, G. Vittiglio
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 3 | December 2009 | Pages 877-887
Shielding | Special Issue on the 11th International Conference on Radiation Shielding and the 15th Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division (PART 3) / Radiation Protection | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A9322
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The VENUS-F facility of the GUINEVERE project must satisfy the nuclear safety criteria required by the licensing regulations of the Belgian authority. For this reason, radiation shielding analyses were performed at Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (FZK) in the course of nuclear safety assessments in support of the GUINEVERE project. The Monte Carlo (MC) MCNP5 model was developed in accordance with the current design of the VENUS-F fast lead reactor. The reactor was assumed to operate on 500-W fission power, which is called zero power, with accelerator-driven system (ADS)-related experimental aims. The MC variance reduction techniques, such as particle splitting, Russian roulette, weight windows, and point detectors, were applied. To speed up the MCNP calculations, the advantages of message-passing interface parallel computations on FZK's CampusGrid Linux Cluster were employed. The MCNP track-length estimations, point detectors, and the mesh tally superimposed over the GUINVERE geometry were used in dose rate calculations. The neutron and photon maps of dose equivalent rate were produced in places of possible personnel access inside the reactor control room and on the accelerator room's floor. To obtain the dose equivalent, the neutron and photon fluences were converted by means of ICRP-77 and ANSI/ANS-6.1.1-1977 conversion factors, respectively. The contributions of the D-D and D-T fusion neutron sources to the dose rate fields were estimated. Activation analyses of the lead core and building materials were performed by the FISPACT-2005 inventory code with the EAF-2005 library to manage the radioactive materials after the series of ADS experiments in the GUINEVERE project. The activity density and shutdown contact dose rate have been calculated. The effect of the impurities in lead on its radioactivity after the VENUS-F campaign was examined.