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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
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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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Latest News
TerraPower begins U.K. regulatory approval process
Seattle-based TerraPower signaled its interest this week in building its Natrium small modular reactor in the United Kingdom, the company announced.
TerraPower sent a letter to the U.K.’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, formally establishing its intention to enter the U.K. generic design assessment (GDA) process. This is TerraPower’s first step in deployment of its Natrium technology—a 345-MW sodium fast reactor coupled with a molten salt energy storage unit—on the international stage.
Anton Lüthi, Rakesh Chawla, Gérald Rimpault
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 138 | Number 3 | July 2001 | Pages 233-255
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE01-A2211
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new calculational scheme has been developed for the accurate assessment of gamma heating in fast reactors, its special feature being the determination of the gamma source distribution that is formulated in a near-to-exact manner. The improved methodology, which has been implemented into the ERANOS (European Reactor Analysis Optimized System) code package, is currently validated for Pu-burning configurations, for which gamma-heating target accuracies are particularly high. This has been accomplished through comparisons with new integral measurements conducted at the MASURCA facility, as well as with reevaluated earlier experiments. In the new measurements, absolute gamma-heating rates were determined in PuO2/UO2-fueled cores surrounded by a steel/sodium reflector, mainly using TLD-700 thermoluminescent dosimeters. Thereby, a considerable effort was undertaken to minimize systematic errors. The calculation/experiment values determined from the analysis of the critical experiments are 0.90 for the PuO2/UO2 core region, 0.84 for the steel/sodium reflector, and 0.89 for an internal steel/sodium diluent zone. The most plausible causes for the observed discrepancies have been identified to be data related, i.e., too low fission gamma energies and too low capture cross sections for the structural elements. The transferability of the current validation findings to a modified Superphénix configuration, in which the radial fertile blanket is replaced by a steel/sodium reflector, and to the 1500 MW(electric) Pu-burning CAPRA 4/94 reference design has been demonstrated.
