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Division Spotlight
Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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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Nuclear News 40 Under 40 discuss the future of nuclear
Seven members of the inaugural Nuclear News 40 Under 40 came together on March 4 to discuss the current state of nuclear energy and what the future might hold for science, industry, and the public in terms of nuclear development.
To hear more insights from this talented group of young professionals, watch the “40 Under 40 Roundtable: Perspectives from Nuclear’s Rising Stars” on the ANS website.
Mihály Makai
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 82 | Number 3 | December 1982 | Pages 338-353
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE82-338
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Solving problems of reactor physics is well developed for typical pressurized water and boiling water reactor geometries but less developed for high-temperature gas-cooled reactor, liquid-metal fast breeder reactor, and WWER (BBP) geometries. Several problems of reactor physics can be formulated in a geometry-independent fashion with the help of symmetry considerations, which allows the solution to be decomposed into eigenfunctions of the symmetry operations. An analytic coarse-mesh solution is derived without resorting to the cross leakage concept. The method is applicable to arbitrary geometries. A second-stage homogenization based on the Bloch theorem is presented. It is shown that the solution of the transport equation can always be made up from a cell problem set (microfunctions) and from an overall solution to the diffusion equation (macrofunction).