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Division Spotlight
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
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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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General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
Nichols
The Oak Ridger has published the latest in a series of articles about General Kenneth D. Nichols, the Manhattan Project, and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The series has been produced by Nichols’ grandniece Barbara Rogers Scollin and Oak Ridge (Tenn.) city historian David Ray Smith. Gen. Nichols (1907–2000) was the district engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District during the Manhattan Project.
As Smith and Scollin explain, Nichols “had supervision of the research and development connected with, and the design, construction, and operation of, all plants required to produce plutonium-239 and uranium-235, including the construction of the towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. The responsibility of his position was massive as he oversaw a workforce of both military and civilian personnel of approximately 125,000; his Oak Ridge office became the center of the wartime atomic energy’s activities.”
Nicolas Martin, Alain Hébert
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 167 | Number 3 | March 2011 | Pages 177-195
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE10-45
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The possibility of performing Monte Carlo transport calculations using cross-section probability tables on the entire energy spectrum is discussed in this paper. This method possesses straight advantages toward other representations: Self-shielding effects are represented during the random walk in a straightforward way, and the calculation cost remains below continuous-energy simulations. This study takes advantage of previous contributions made in subgroup-based self-shielding models, regarding the definitions of optimized energy meshes and adequate numerical methods for consistently computing cross-section probability tables. Moment-based probability-table cross sections along with an energy mesh comprising only 295 groups lead to results with a similar level of accuracy to those obtained with a continuous-energy Monte Carlo method. Another innovative aspect of this work is related to the introduction of correlated weight matrices into a Monte Carlo algorithm. These correlated weights are used to represent mutual self-shielding effects occurring where resonances of different isotopes overlap.