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Division Spotlight
Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
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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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.”
Ethan Smith, Ilham Variansyah, Ryan McClarren
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 8 | August 2023 | Pages 1769-1778
Technical papers from: PHYSOR 2022 | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2142025
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We present a new approach to calculating time eigenvalues of the neutron transport operator (also known as eigenvalues) by extending the dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) to allow for nonuniform time steps. The new method, called variable dynamic mode decomposition (VDMD), is shown to be accurate when computing eigenvalues for systems that were infeasible with DMD due to a large separation in timescales (such as those that occur in delayed supercritical systems). The eigenvalues of an infinite medium neutron transport problem with delayed neutrons, and consequently having multiple, very different relevant timescales, are computed. Furthermore, VDMD is shown to be of similar accuracy to the original DMD approach when computing eigenvalues in other systems where the previously studied DMD approach can be used.
