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
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
Meeting Spotlight
Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2025)
February 3–6, 2025
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
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
Jan 2025
Jul 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
February 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
How to talk about nuclear
In your career as a professional in the nuclear community, chances are you will, at some point, be asked (or volunteer) to talk to at least one layperson about the technology you know and love. You might even be asked to present to a whole group of nonnuclear folks, perhaps as a pitch to some company tangential to your company’s business. So, without further ado, let me give you some pointers on the best way to approach this important and surprisingly complicated task.
Hiroshi Mitani
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 51 | Number 2 | June 1973 | Pages 180-188
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE51-180
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A higher order perturbation formula for calculating changes in the reactivity up to a desired order in concise form is given; the formula uses the iterative technique well known in quantum mechanics and in the neutron life-cycle method. This procedure is possible only when the adjoint flux in the unperturbed system is used as the weighting function. The higher order perturbation formula contains the interaction between the perturbation inserted and its surrounding medium, but it consists only of the integration over the perturbed region. Numerical calculations up to the third-order perturbation show that the first-order perturbation technique gives a low value for the reactivity worths of fission, absorption, and scattering materials; further, the n’th-order perturbation is proportional to the n’th power of the concentration of an inserted perturbation.