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
Nuclear Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
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
Mar 2025
Jul 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
March 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
February 2025
Latest News
Prepare for the 2025 Nuclear PE Exam with ANS guides
The next opportunity to earn professional engineer (PE) licensure in nuclear engineering is this fall, and now is the time to sign up and begin studying with the help of materials like the online module program offered by the American Nuclear Society.
A. B. Chilton
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 21 | Number 2 | February 1965 | Pages 194-200
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE65-A21043
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Backscattering factors, as fractions of the direct dose rate, are obtained for point sources of gamma radiation, specifically Cs137 and Co60, placed near a plane interface between vacuum and concrete. The method is based on the application of albedo principles, using the Chilton-Huddleston formulation for albedo. The results are considered practically applicable to air-concrete or air-ground interface situations, provided the source-detector, source-interface, and detector-interface distances are within certain limits. The lower limit is in theory the order of a mean free path of the source radiation in concrete, although under certain circumstances the present results are valid for distances even less. The upper limit appears to be on the order of a few dozen feet, but further precise experimental work is needed to establish this.