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Division Spotlight
Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
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
Colin Judge: Testing structural materials in Idaho’s newest hot cell facility
Idaho National Laboratory’s newest facility—the Sample Preparation Laboratory (SPL)—sits across the road from the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF), which started operating in 1975. SPL will host the first new hot cells at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) in 50 years, giving INL researchers and partners new flexibility to test the structural properties of irradiated materials fresh from the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) or from a partner’s facility.
Materials meant to withstand extreme conditions in fission or fusion power plants must be tested under similar conditions and pushed past their breaking points so performance and limitations can be understood and improved. Once irradiated, materials samples can be cut down to size in SPL and packaged for testing in other facilities at INL or other national laboratories, commercial labs, or universities. But they can also be subjected to extreme thermal or corrosive conditions and mechanical testing right in SPL, explains Colin Judge, who, as INL’s division director for nuclear materials performance, oversees SPL and other facilities at the MFC.
SPL won’t go “hot” until January 2026, but Judge spoke with NN staff writer Susan Gallier about its capabilities as his team was moving instruments into the new facility.
Lili Liu, Hongxing Yu, Liang Chen, Deng Jian, Deng Chunrui, Zhang Dan, Wu Xiaoli ( Nuclear Power Inst of China)
Proceedings | 2018 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2018) | Charlotte, NC, April 8-11, 2018 | Pages 239-246
The configuration of a corium pool in the lower plenum of reactor vessel is very important for validity of maintaining reactor vessel integrity under IVRERVC (In-Vessel corium Retention through External Reactor Vessel Cooling) condition. A method is designed to predict the configuration of corium pool for an Advanced China PWR, call ACP1000 after entire melt dropping into the lower plenum. It takes into account both thermo-chemical reaction of oxides and metals in corium and the influence of different paths of corium relocated from core region into the lower plenum. The reasons why a three-layer pool has not been observed in the MASCA and COSMOS tests are given by this method. The method is applied to investigate the corium configuration of ACP1000 after a hypothetical station blackout (SBO) accident. It is shown that the stratification of the corium pool is related to the relocation paths of the corium. In the case of downward relocation, a two-layer melt pool with a metal layer on the top is formed. For the sideward relocation, the configuration shows a stratified pool consisting of a dense metal layer on the bottom, an oxide layer in the middle and a light metal layer on the top.
