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.
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.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2025
Nuclear Technology
April 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
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.”
Brian A. Lockwood, Mihai Anitescu
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 170 | Number 2 | February 2012 | Pages 168-195
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE10-86
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In this work, we investigate the issue of providing a statistical model for the response of a computer model-described nuclear engineering system, for use in uncertainty propagation. The motivation behind our approach is the need for providing an uncertainty assessment even in the circumstances where only a few samples are available. Building on our recent work in using a regression approach with derivative information for approximating the system response, we investigate the ability of a universal gradient-enhanced Kriging model to provide a means for inexpensive uncertainty quantification. The universal Kriging model can be viewed as a hybrid of polynomial regression and Gaussian process regression. For this model, the mean behavior of the surrogate is determined by a polynomial regression, and deviations from this mean are represented as a Gaussian process. Tests with explicit functions and nuclear engineering models show that the universal gradient-enhanced Kriging model provides a more accurate surrogate model than either regression or ordinary Kriging models. In addition, we investigate the ability of the Kriging model to provide error predictions and bounds for regression models.