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
Christmas Light
’Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house
No electrons were flowing through even my mouse.
All devices were plugged by the chimney with care
With the hope that St. Nikola Tesla would share.
R. P. Gardner, M. Mickael, M. Oraby, K. Verghese
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 108 | Number 3 | July 1991 | Pages 240-246
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE91-A23822
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A general direction biasing approach for Monte Carlo scattering simulation in a laboratory system, previously applied to neutron scattering for all elements except hydrogen for isotropic center-of-mass scattering, is applied to hydrogen. (Neutron scattering with hydrogen represents a unique problem in direction biasing, in that only scattering at angles <π/2 are allowable.) The pertinent relationships are derived and sample results are given for problems of practical importance in neutron porosity well logging. (Note that this problem is significantly different from neutron shielding problems in that detection is favored for thermal neutrons in this case, while escape occurs at all energies in the shielding problem.) The use of neutron hydrogen scattering direction biasing gives the same results in the problems treated as when it is not used, indicating that the treatment is valid. However, for the approach of fixing the direction biasing parameters throughout a neutron history, the addition of hydrogen direction biasing only slightly improves the Monte Carlo figure of merit, and then only when very moderate biasing is used. It is likely that the optimum use of neutron hydrogen scattering direction biasing (at least for the neutron porosity well logging problem) will involve a more complex approach, such as tailoring the severity of the biasing to the remainder of the average neutron path length available, or, in general, to the established importance sampling technique relating to where the neutron resides in phase-space.