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!
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Christmas Night
Twas the night before Christmas when all through the houseNo electrons were flowing through even my mouse.
All devices were plugged in by the chimney with careWith the hope that St. Nikola Tesla would share.
Matthew A. Gonzales, Brian C. Kiedrowski, Anil K. Prinja, Forrest B. Brown
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 191 | Number 1 | July 2018 | Pages 1-45
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2018.1442546
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The heavy-gas model with specific energy-dependent absorption cross sections is used to construct analytical, semi-analytical, and numerical free-gas scattering benchmarks for the neutron spectrum, effective multiplication factor k, and temperature coefficient in an infinite, homogeneous medium. The energy dependences considered are piecewise constant, constant plus inverse in energy, and piecewise linear. Analytic forms for k and in terms of hypergeometric functions are obtained for piecewise-constant absorption with two energy ranges and for constant-plus-inverse-in-energy absorption. Analogous semi-analytical integral expressions are obtained for piecewise-linear absorption with two energy ranges. Numerical solutions of a linear system are obtained for piecewise-constant and piecewise-linear absorption for greater than two energy ranges. The heavy-gas model solutions of k are compared with continuous-energy Monte Carlo calculations; the results converge to the heavy-gas model with increasing target mass ratio A, demonstrating the heavy-gas model’s utility as a verification benchmark.