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 Nonproliferation Policy
The mission of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division (NNPD) is to promote the peaceful use of nuclear technology while simultaneously preventing the diversion and misuse of nuclear material and technology through appropriate safeguards and security, and promotion of nuclear nonproliferation policies. To achieve this mission, the objectives of the NNPD are to: Promote policy that discourages the proliferation of nuclear technology and material to inappropriate entities. Provide information to ANS members, the technical community at large, opinion leaders, and decision makers to improve their understanding of nuclear nonproliferation issues. Become a recognized technical resource on nuclear nonproliferation, safeguards, and security issues. Serve as the integration and coordination body for nuclear nonproliferation activities for the ANS. Work cooperatively with other ANS divisions to achieve these objective nonproliferation policies.
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.”
R. Ofek, A. Tsechanski, A. Goldfeld, G. Shani
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 101 | Number 2 | February 1989 | Pages 185-203
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE89-A23607
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Ben-Gurion University measurements of neutron energy spectra in a graphite stack, resulting from the scattering of 14.7-MeV neutrons streaming through a 6-cm-diam collimator in a 121-cm-thick paraffin wall, have been used as a benchmark for the compatibility and accuracy of discrete ordinates, Pn, and transport calculations and as a tool for fusion reactor neutronics. The transport analysis has been carried out with the DOT 4.2 discrete ordinates code and with cross sections processed with the NJOY code. Most of the parameters affecting the accuracy of the calculations have been investigated: the density of the spatial mesh, the order of expansion of the flux and L system scattering cross sections in the Pn approximation, the quadrature set employed, and the energy multigroup structure., First, a spectrum calculated with DOT 4.2, with a detector located on the axis of the system, was compared with a spectrum calculated with the MCNP Monte Carlo code, which was a preliminary verification of the DOT 4.2 results. Both calculated spectra were in good agreement., Next, the DOT 4.2 calculations were compared with the measured spectra. The comparison showed that the discrepancies between the measurements and the calculations increase as the distance between the detector and the system axis increases. This trend indicates that when the flux is determined mainly by multiple scatterings, a more divided multigroup structure should be employed., Nevertheless, the agreement between the measurement and the calculation for a detector located on the axis is good. The slight discrepancy in this case is attributed to an inadequacy in the ENDF/B-V elastic scattering data of carbon, as well as to an erroneous unfolding of the neutron energy spectra with the FORIST code from proton-recoil spectra measured by an NE-213 scintillator., A P7 (or even P6) order of scattering is sufficient for most of the neutron transport problems associated with a high degree of anisotropy because the Legendre expansion of the flux converges much faster than that of the L system Legendre components of the scattering cross sections. The P7 order of scattering is needed only for treatment of elastic scattering, while lower orders of scattering are needed for discrete-level inelastic scatterings.
