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
Mathematics & Computation
Division members promote the advancement of mathematical and computational methods for solving problems arising in all disciplines encompassed by the Society. They place particular emphasis on numerical techniques for efficient computer applications to aid in the dissemination, integration, and proper use of computer codes, including preparation of computational benchmark and development of standards for computing practices, and to encourage the development on new computer codes and broaden their use.
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
Mar 2025
Jul 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
March 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
February 2025
Latest News
Molten salt research is focus of ANS local section presentation
The American Nuclear Society’s Chicago–Great Lakes Local Section hosted a presentation on February 27 on developments at the molten salt research reactor at Abilene Christian University’s Nuclear Energy Experimental Testing (NEXT) Lab.
A recording of the presentation is available on the ANS website.
H. L. McMurry, L. J. Gannon, W. A. Hestir
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 15 | Number 4 | April 1963 | Pages 438-450
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE63-A26461
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The methods presented in the accompanying paper for computing partial differential scattering cross sections are evaluated by comparing calculated results with experimental results for methane and propane, and by comparing results on a hypothetical OH molecule of the more approximate methods with the most rigorous ones. The method which treats rotations quantum mechanically gives good agreement with experiments on methane and can be considered as rigorous. The method which treats rotations classically, vibrations by quantum mechanics, and averages over orientation exactly also agrees well with methane experiments, except for scattering at forward angles and low neutron energies where the energy exchanges are comparable to the rotational level spacings. It is used as a standard of comparison for calculations on the OH molecule. The Krieger-Nelkin method, which also treats rotations classically but averages over orientation by inserting average values of functions of the Eulerian angles wherever they appear, works very well at low neutron energies. Calculations on OH show that when the characteristic vibrational energy is high, but much lower than the incident neutron energy, the K.N. averaging breaks down. The short collision time method of treating low energy vibrations is impractical because too many terms in the required series expansion are needed to give good results. The method which treats low energy vibrations classically is very promising. It gives very good results when the characteristic vibrational energies are low, and is better than the K.N. when the characteristic energy is high, but much lower than the neutron energy. It is indicated how the third and fifth methods can be used to treat liquids and solids when the atomic motions can be described by simple dynamical models.