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
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
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!
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
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Latest News
Norway’s Halden reactor takes first step toward decommissioning
The government of Norway has granted the transfer of the Halden research reactor from the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) to the state agency Norwegian Nuclear Decommissioning (NND). The 25-MWt Halden boiling water reactor operated from 1958 to 2018 and was used in the research of nuclear fuel, reactor internals, plant procedures and monitoring, and human factors.
Quentin Newell, Charlotta Sanders
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 179 | Number 3 | March 2015 | Pages 253-263
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE13-44
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Monte Carlo (MC) method is becoming popular for three-dimensional fuel depletion analyses to compute quantities of interest in used nuclear fuel including isotopic compositions. However, there are some questions concerning the effect of MC uncertainties on predicted results in MC depletion calculations. The MC method introduces stochastic uncertainty in the computed fluxes. These fluxes are used to collapse cross sections, estimate power distributions, and deplete the fuel within depletion calculations; therefore, the predicted number densities also contain random and propagated uncertainties due to the MC solution to the neutron transport equation. The linear uncertainty nuclide group approximation (LUNGA) method was developed to calculate the propagated stochastic uncertainty in the nuclear isotopics, using the time-varying flux subjected to the power normalization constraint. Verification of the LUNGA method demonstrated that the standard deviation in the number densities and infinite multiplication factor (kinf) predicted by this method agree well with the uncertainty obtained from the statistical analysis of 100 different simulations performed with coupled MC depletion calculations. Future research includes (a) expanding the LUNGA methodology to include more nuclides, (b) fully automating the methodology, and (c) investigating the use of an axial segmented fuel rod.
