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Division Spotlight
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.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Winter Conference and Expo
November 17–21, 2024
Orlando, FL|Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld
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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Oak Ridge community roundtable explores workforce challenges
Federal and contractor officials, community leaders, and educators gathered in Knoxville, Tenn., on October 29 for a roundtable event focused on ensuring the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) and its partners have the resources and infrastructure needed to support a robust, talented workforce in the years ahead.
Haihua Zhao, Vincent A. Mousseau
Nuclear Technology | Volume 181 | Number 1 | January 2013 | Pages 184-195
Technical Paper | Special Issue on the 14th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-14) / Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-A15766
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper presents extended forward sensitivity analysis as a method to improve uncertainty quantification. By including the time step and potentially grid spacing as special sensitivity parameters, the forward sensitivity method is extended as one method to quantify numerical errors. Note that by integrating local truncation errors over the whole system through the forward sensitivity analysis process, the generated time step sensitivity information reflects global numerical errors. Discretization errors can be systematically compared against uncertainties due to other physical parameters. This extension makes the forward sensitivity method a much more powerful tool than other tools of its type to help uncertainty quantification. When the relative sensitivity of the time step to other physical parameters is known, the simulation is allowed to run at optimized time steps without affecting the confidence of the physical parameter sensitivity results. The time step forward sensitivity analysis method can also replace traditional time step convergence studies that are a key part of code verification, with much less computational cost. Two well-defined benchmark problems with manufactured solutions are utilized to demonstrate the method.