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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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!
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Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
S. B. Gunst, E. D. McGarry, J. J. Scoville
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 7 | Number 5 | May 1960 | Pages 407-418
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE60-A25738
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Natural uranium dioxide specimens of Shippingport PWR-l blanket-rod geometry are exposed in the Materials Testing Reactor (flux 2 × 1014 n/cm2−sec) and discharged periodically (every three weeks) for measurements in the Reactivity Measurement Facility (RMF). The time-integrated thermal and epithermal fluxes are measured during each exposure cycle, and together with the MTR Daily Power Logs, give the complete exposure history. Measurements in the RMF are used to determine an experimental value for η/η0 (η0 is the preirradiation value) which may be compared with the theoretical η/η0 calculated for the measured exposure history using appropriate neutron-interaction parameters. In the theoretical calculations, the thermal absorption cross section of stable fission products is taken to be 50 barns per fission. Although the experimental and theoretical results are derived completely independently, agreement within 1 % in η/η0 is found for the behavior following all cycles of irradiation comprising exposures from zero to 15,600 Mwd/ton.