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Division Spotlight
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.
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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Latest News
Norway’s Halden reactor takes first step toward decommissioning
The government of Norway has granted the transfer of the Halden research reactor from the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) to the state agency Norwegian Nuclear Decommissioning (NND). The 25-MWt Halden boiling water reactor operated from 1958 to 2018 and was used in the research of nuclear fuel, reactor internals, plant procedures and monitoring, and human factors.
Miguel Morales Gutierrez, Stefano Caruso, Nikitas Diomidis (Nagra)
Proceedings | 16th International High-Level Radioactive Waste Management Conference (IHLRWM 2017) | Charlotte, NC, April 9-13, 2017 | Pages 498-505
According to the Swiss disposal concept, the safety of a deep geological repository for spent nuclear fuel (SNF) is based on a multi-barrier system. The disposal canister is an important component of the engineered barrier concept, providing containment of the SNF for at least 10,000 years. This study evaluates the criticality safety and shielding of candidate disposal canister concepts, focusing on the fulfillment of the sub-criticality criterion and on limiting radiolysis processes at the outer surface of the canister which can enhance corrosion mechanisms.
The effective neutron multiplication factor (k-eff) and the surface dose rates are calculated for three different canister designs and material combinations for boiling water reactor (BWR) canisters, containing 12 spent fuel assemblies (SFA), and pressurized water reactor (PWR) canisters, with 4 SFAs. For each configuration, individual criticality and shielding calculations are carried out using the SCALE6.2 package (KENO-VI for criticality; MAVRIC for shielding). The results show that k-eff falls below the defined upper safety limit (USL) of 0.95 for all BWR configurations, while staying above USL for the PWR ones. For a final burnup of 55MWd/kgHM and 30y cooling time, the combined photon-neutron surface dose rate is well below the defined limit of 1Gy/h in all cases.