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
2024 ANS Winter Conference and Expo
November 17–21, 2024
Orlando, FL|Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld
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
Aug 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
October 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2024
Latest News
New laws offer nuclear industry incentives for existing power plant uprates
This year, the U.S. nuclear industry received a much-needed economic boost that could help preserve operating nuclear power plants and incentivize upgrades that extend their lifespan and power output.
Signed into law in 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act offers production tax credits (PTCs) for existing nuclear power plants and either PTCs or investment tax credits (ITCs) for new carbon-free generation. These credits could make power uprates—increasing the maximum power level at which a commercial plant may operate—a much more appealing option for utilities.
Per Seltborg, Jan Wallenius, Kamil Tucek, Waclaw Gudowski
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 145 | Number 3 | November 2003 | Pages 390-399
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE03-A2390
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In order to study the beam power amplification of an accelerator-driven system (ADS), a new parameter, the proton source efficiency * is introduced. * represents the average importance of the external proton source, relative to the average importance of the eigenmode production, and is closely related to the neutron source efficiency [varphi]*, which is frequently used in the ADS field. [varphi]* is commonly used in the physics of subcritical systems driven by any external source (spallation source, (d,d), (d,t), 252Cf spontaneous fissions, etc.). On the contrary, * has been defined in this paper exclusively for ADS studies where the system is driven by a spallation source. The main advantage with using * instead of [varphi]* for ADS is that the way of defining the external source is unique and that it is proportional to the core power divided by the proton beam power, independent of the neutron source distribution.Numerical simulations have been performed with the Monte Carlo code MCNPX in order to study * as a function of different design parameters. It was found that, in order to maximize * and therefore minimize the proton current needs, a target radius as small as possible should be chosen. For target radii smaller than ~30 cm, lead-bismuth is a better choice of coolant material than sodium, regarding the proton source efficiency, while for larger target radii the two materials are equally good. The optimal axial proton beam impact was found to be located ~20 cm above the core center. Varying the proton energy, */Ep was found to have a maximum for proton energies between 1200 and 1400 MeV. Increasing the americium content in the fuel decreases * considerably, in particular when the target radius is large.