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Decommissioning & Environmental Sciences
The mission of the Decommissioning and Environmental Sciences (DES) Division is to promote the development and use of those skills and technologies associated with the use of nuclear energy and the optimal management and stewardship of the environment, sustainable development, decommissioning, remediation, reutilization, and long-term surveillance and maintenance of nuclear-related installations, and sites. The target audience for this effort is the membership of the Division, the Society, and the public at large.
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Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2025)
February 3–6, 2025
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
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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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Latest News
DOE-EM awards $37.5M to Vanderbilt University for nuclear cleanup support
The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced on January 16 that it has awarded a noncompetitive financial assistance agreement worth $37.5 million to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., to aid the department’s mission of cleaning up legacy nuclear waste.
Jerome L. Shapiro
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 12 | Number 4 | April 1962 | Pages 449-456
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE62-A26090
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An experimental and analytical study of the void coefficient of reactivity in the Ford Nuclear Reactor (a fully enriched, swimming pool type) has been completed. A stream of air bubbles was used to introduce voids. Out-of-pile calibration of the air flow system was necessary to account for variation in bubble rise velocity with average air concentration. This method is extremely simple except for the calibration procedure. With the results presented in this paper, the void coefficients of other reactors with similar fuel elements (18 plate, BSR type) can be measured without the necessity for recalibration. For the calculation of uniformly distributed void coefficients, relatively simple two-group diffusion theory is shown to be accurate provided the variation of leakage in all three dimensions is taken into account. This variation of leakage is computed by the use of a buckling iterative procedure. Second order effects, such as the variation of effective thermal neutron temperature and disadvantage factor, may be neglected. For the calculation of localized void effects, the buckling iteration method is inaccurate due to the nonseparability of axial and radial flux distribution in this small core. To improve the accuracy an extension of this method to several region iteration is suggested. The principal value of this type of calculation is the short computer time required.