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
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!
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.”
Iztok Tiselj, Gregor Cerne
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 134 | Number 3 | March 2000 | Pages 306-311
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE134-306
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The behavior of the RELAP5 code at very short time steps is described, i.e., t [approximately equal to] 0.01 x/c. First, the property of the RELAP5 code to trace acoustic waves with "almost" second-order accuracy is demonstrated. Quasi-second-order accuracy is usually achieved for acoustic waves at very short time steps but can never be achieved for the propagation of nonacoustic temperature and void fraction waves. While this feature may be beneficial for the simulations of fast transients describing pressure waves, it also has an adverse effect: The lack of numerical diffusion at very short time steps can cause typical second-order numerical oscillations near steep pressure jumps. This behavior explains why an automatic halving of the time step, which is used in RELAP5 when numerical difficulties are encountered, in some cases leads to the failure of the simulation.Second, the integration of the stiff interphase exchange terms in RELAP5 is studied. For transients with flashing and/or rapid condensation as the main phenomena, results strongly depend on the time step used. Poor accuracy is achieved with "normal" time steps (t [approximately equal to] x/v) because of the very short characteristic timescale of the interphase mass and heat transfer sources. In such cases significantly different results are predicted with very short time steps because of the more accurate integration of the stiff interphase exchange terms.