ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
Mar 2026
Jan 2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
April 2026
Nuclear Technology
February 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
Stefan Taczanowski
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 13 | Number 1 | January 1988 | Pages 125-130
Technical Paper | Blanket Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST88-A25089
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The resonance self-shielding effects in heterogeneous fissile breeding systems have been investigated. In media having peaked resonance cross sections, the influence of heterogeneities is manifested in the energy and space neutron flux depressions. The outcomes of numerical calculations performed for various pellet sizes and fissile material concentrations are shown in the form of “het-to-hom” ratios of the results obtained by considering normalized heterogeneities in relation to those accounting for self-shielding in respective, computationally homogenized mixtures. The observed reduction in fissile breeding and the increase in tritium breeding, 233U fissions, and parasitic absorptions are of the order of several tens of percent, depending on the fertile content. It is emphasized that neglecting heterogeneities leads to serious errors and nonoptimum designs, thus proving to be inadmissible in neutronic calculations for emerging nuclear energy systems.