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Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
Meeting Spotlight
Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2025)
February 3–6, 2025
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
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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
When your test capsule is the test: ORNL’s 3D-printed rabbit
Oak Ridge National Laboratory has, for the first time, designed, printed, and irradiated a specimen capsule—or rabbit capsule—for use in its High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR), the Department of Energy announced on January 15.
Anil Kumar
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 82 | Number 3 | December 1982 | Pages 354-358
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE82-A19396
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the considerations of recriticality of molten fuel assemblies, the presence of bubbles in the fuel plays an important role. In such a situation, there are two opposing contributions to reactivity from (a) the phenomenon of neutron streaming in bubbles (negative contribution) and (b) the phenomenon of changing neutron self-multiplication in the fuel (positive contribution). It is not possible to accurately calculate the individual reactivity contributions of the two phenomena using multidimensional transport theory or Monte Carlo codes. A simple diffusion theory expression given by Nicholson and Goldsmith for estimating reactivity contribution due to neutron streaming alone has been used extensively. As a part of the present contribution, first an attempt has been made to improve the applicability of the Nicholson-Goldsmith work by expressing extrapolation length in terms of the root-mean-square free path in the assembly. It is found that the application of the Trombay criticality formula, particularly its “modified Wigner rational variant,” leads to an expression for bubble reactivity worth, due to neutron streaming alone, that yields the closest agreement with the bubble worth values computed from the two-dimensional transport theory code TWOTRAN and the Monte Carlo code KENO.