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Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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First astatine-labeled compound shipped in the U.S.
The Department of Energy’s National Isotope Development Center (NIDC) on March 31 announced the successful long-distance shipment in the United States of a biologically active compound labeled with the medical radioisotope astatine-211 (At-211). Because previous shipments have included only the “bare” isotope, the NIDC has described the development as “unleashing medical innovation.”
G. I. Bell, G. E. Hansen, and H. A. Sandmeier
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 28 | Number 3 | June 1967 | Pages 376-383
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE67-2
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Much theoretical work has been done in the past to represent the angular dependence in the scattering source term of the Boltzmann equation by means of Legendre or other series expansions. However, relatively little work has been done to feed this information into our present-day SN codes. The SN transport codes at LASL allow a representation of anisotropy in the scattering source term by means of multi-table cross-section sets and two formalisms are given here to generate these sets. Both involve the expansion of scattering cross sections in a series of Legendre polynomials, and incorporation of the expansion coefficients in the tables of transfer cross sections. One, called a consistent P approximation, involves a simple truncation of the series; while the other, called an extended transport approximation, includes an attempt to approximate the next higher term in the series. A general expression is derived for the error in the neutron flux due to either approximation. The numerical evaluation of SN cross-section entries for these formalisms has been computerized. Convergence with respect to Number of Tables is numerically investigated for several different neutron-transport problems: a) deep penetration of high-energy neutrons in air; b) critical size of an enriched-uranium bare sphere; c) reflector savings for an enriched-uranium sphere immersed in H2O; and d) fast-reactor core mockup on ANL's ZPR-III. It is concluded from these problems that both approximations converge rapidly with increasing number of tables and that the simple transport approximation gives quite accurate results for a wide range of problems.
