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
Robotics & Remote Systems
The Mission of the Robotics and Remote Systems Division is to promote the development and application of immersive simulation, robotics, and remote systems for hazardous environments for the purpose of reducing hazardous exposure to individuals, reducing environmental hazards and reducing the cost of performing work.
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
Norway’s Halden reactor takes first step toward decommissioning
The government of Norway has granted the transfer of the Halden research reactor from the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) to the state agency Norwegian Nuclear Decommissioning (NND). The 25-MWt Halden boiling water reactor operated from 1958 to 2018 and was used in the research of nuclear fuel, reactor internals, plant procedures and monitoring, and human factors.
Bryan Minor, Kirk Mathews
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 120 | Number 3 | July 1995 | Pages 165-186
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE95-A24117
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The exponential characteristic (EC) spatial quadrature for discrete ordinates neutral particle transport previously introduced in slab geometry is extended here to x-y geometry with rectangular cells. The method is derived and compared with current methods. It is similar to the linear characteristic (LC) quadrature (a linear-linear moments method) but differs by assuming an exponential distribution of the scattering source within each cell, S(x) = a exp(bx + cy), whose parameters are rootsolved to match the known (from the previous iteration) spatial average and first moments of the source over the cell. Similarly, EC assumes exponential distributions of flux along cell edges through which particles enter the cell, with parameters chosen to match the average and first moments of flux, as passed from the adjacent, upstream cells (or as determined by boundary conditions). Like the linear adaptive (LA) method, EC is positive and nonlinear. It is more accurate than LA and does not require subdivision of cells. The nonlinearity has not interfered with convergence. The exponential moment functions, which were introduced with the slab geometry method, are extended to arbitrary dimensions (numbers of arguments) and used to avoid numerical ill conditioning. As in slab geometry, the method approaches O(Δx4) global truncation error on fine-enough meshes, while the error is insensitive to mesh size for coarse meshes. Performance of the method is compared with that of the step characteristic, LC, linear nodal, step adaptive, and LA schemes. The EC method is a strong performer with scattering ratios ranging from 0 to 0.9 (the range tested), particularly so for lower scattering ratios. As in slab geometry, EC is computationally more costly per cell than current methods but can be accurate with very thick cells, leading to increased computational efficiency on appropriate problems.