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.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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
Dec 2025
Jul 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
January 2026
Nuclear Technology
December 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
November 2025
Latest News
AI at work: Southern Nuclear’s adoption of Copilot agents drives fleet forward
Southern Nuclear is leading the charge in artificial intelligence integration, with employee-developed applications driving efficiencies in maintenance, operations, safety, and performance.
The tools span all roles within the company, with thousands of documented uses throughout the fleet, including improved maintenance efficiency, risk awareness in maintenance activities, and better-informed decision-making. The data-intensive process of preparing for and executing maintenance operations is streamlined by leveraging AI to put the right information at the fingertips for maintenance leaders, planners, schedulers, engineers, and technicians.
Feroz Ahmed, L. S. Kothari, Ashok Kumar
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 46 | Number 2 | November 1971 | Pages 203-213
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE71-A22354
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The dependence of neutron diffusion length on the size and shape of the cross-sectional area of infinitely long rectangular blocks of crystalline moderators (graphite and beryllium) has been studied using an energy-dependent transverse buckling. In conformity with the experimental results in graphite, the diffusion length is found to increase with a decrease in the transverse size of the assembly. It is further found that in assemblies with small transverse dimensions, pseudoequilibrium conditions are established fairly rapidly and reasons for this are discussed. On the other hand, in assemblies with intermediate transverse dimensions (cross-sectional area lying between 70 × 70 cm2 and 50 × 50 cm2 for graphite and between 30 × 30 cm2 and 20 × 20 cm2 for beryllium), even pseudo-equilibrium conditions are not established at very large distances from the source. Dependence of the diffusion length on the shape of the cross-sectional area is also investigated.