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Division Spotlight
Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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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General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
Nichols
The Oak Ridger has published the latest in a series of articles about General Kenneth D. Nichols, the Manhattan Project, and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The series has been produced by Nichols’ grandniece Barbara Rogers Scollin and Oak Ridge (Tenn.) city historian David Ray Smith. Gen. Nichols (1907–2000) was the district engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District during the Manhattan Project.
As Smith and Scollin explain, Nichols “had supervision of the research and development connected with, and the design, construction, and operation of, all plants required to produce plutonium-239 and uranium-235, including the construction of the towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. The responsibility of his position was massive as he oversaw a workforce of both military and civilian personnel of approximately 125,000; his Oak Ridge office became the center of the wartime atomic energy’s activities.”
Seongchan Kim, Han Gyu Joo
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 8 | August 2023 | Pages 1564-1583
Technical papers from: PHYSOR 2022 | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2144083
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The capability and performance of the hexagonal version of the nTRACER direct whole-core calculation code are enhanced for VVER applications by extending the geometry-handling features and also by implementing assemblywise parallelization of the planar method of characteristics (MOC) calculation with higher-order scattering. The geometry-handling methods for the VVER hexagonal geometry having various special constituents are presented with detailed illustrations. The assemblywise domain decomposition (ADD) scheme is established under the hexagonal coarse-mesh finite difference formulation, which is exploited to update the incoming angular flux needed for the ADD parallelization. The solution accuracy and parallel performance are assessed for various hexagonal core problems, including the VVER benchmarks. It is shown that the hexagonal geometry solutions of nTRACER match with the reference Monte Carlo solutions within about 50 pcm in reactivity and 1% in pin power distribution and that the hexagonal ADD can reduce the computing time of the planar MOC calculation by up to 53% when compared to the anglewise parallelization.
