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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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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Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
D. B. MacMillan
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 39 | Number 3 | March 1970 | Pages 329-336
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE70-A19994
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A mathematical method is described for the computation of the probability distribution of neutron populations in a point reactor with a weak source. The author and his colleagues have previously described a method for doing such computations, and G. I. Bell has described a different method; the present paper uses ideas from both of these older methods plus new formulations for computing the probability distribution from values of the generating function, for evaluating the probability distribution of precursor decay rates instead of that of neutron populations, and for evaluating the effect of short neutron lifetime without using unnecessarily short time steps in numerical integration. As a result, the method presented here is more widely applicable and more accurate than the older methods. The reactor model used here permits taking account of six delayed-neutron precursor groups and of finite neutron lifetime.