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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
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
First astatine-labeled compound shipped in the U.S.
The Department of Energy’s National Isotope Development Center (NIDC) on March 31 announced the successful long-distance shipment in the United States of a biologically active compound labeled with the medical radioisotope astatine-211 (At-211). Because previous shipments have included only the “bare” isotope, the NIDC has described the development as “unleashing medical innovation.”
Zhiyao Xing, Eugene Shwageraus (Univ of Cambridge)
Proceedings | 2018 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2018) | Charlotte, NC, April 8-11, 2018 | Pages 777-786
Prismatic block type Fluoride-salt-cooled High-temperature Reactors (FHRs) can benefit from Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR) technologies. To provide guidance for future AGR-like FHR design, this paper, based on systematic searches across a wide range of AGR-like assembly models and simplified single pin models, studies the beginning of cycle excess reactivity and coolant temperature coefficients of FHRs with different design parameters and alternative salt coolants. LiF-NaF-KF (FLiNaK) and non-Tritium-producing salt NaF-ZrF4 are studied as coolant options alternative to 2LiF-BeF2 (FLiBe) using unit cell models. The results suggest that the NaF-ZrF4 cooled, UC fuelled single pin models with 40% to 100% salt to graphite mass ratios and pitch to diameter ratios of 4.0 to 4.8 can achieve the best beginning of cycle neutronics performances among all designs options surveyed. While the assembly models and pin cell models capture the same reactor physics phenomena, designing FHR strictly within the physical constraint of AGR configuration limits the designs space and results in poorer neutronics performance comparing with the best performing unit cell models. Greater degrees of freedom could be considered in the future assembly level design process to best capture the desirable neutronics benefits of the recommended single pin designs.