ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
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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
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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Latest News
Article considers incorporation of AI into nuclear power plant operations
The potential application of artificial intelligence to the operation of nuclear power plants is explored in an article published in late December in the Washington Examiner. The article, written by energy and environment reporter Callie Patteson, presents the views of a number of experts, including Yavuz Arik, a strategic energy consultant.
Hiroshi Okuno, Tomohiro Sakai
Nuclear Technology | Volume 122 | Number 3 | June 1998 | Pages 265-275
Technical Paper | Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT98-A2868
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
It is well known that the maximum reactivity is realized for the flat fuel distribution with the fuel importance function being constant. The Lagrange method of an undetermined multiplier was used to incorporate the constraint that the mean uranium concentration or the total uranium mass shall be conserved. The OPT-SN computer program is developed, which includes an SN code ANISN-JR to solve the multigroup neutron transport equations. This program has given more reliable results than the previous scheme using the diffusion approximation, especially for bare and partially reflected fuel systems. OPT-SN was applied to criticality calculations for mixtures of 5 wt% 235U-enriched uranium dioxide and water (slurries) covered with a water reflector in all directions, in half directions, and uncovered. The calculations made for the UO2-H2O slurries in a sphere, an infinitely long cylinder, and an infinite slab with a water reflector in all directions revealed that a degree of nonuniformity effect tends to increase as the mean uranium concentration increases. It amounts to ~6% k/k for these systems at the mean uranium concentration of 4000 gU/l. The degree of nonuniformity effect is found more than 6% k/k even for as low a mean uranium concentration as 700 gU/l of the slab fuel system with a reflector only on one side. This fact confirmed from the viewpoint of nuclear criticality safety the importance of evaluating the optimum distribution of fuel in slurry contained in a tank placed on the concrete floor. Precipitation is regarded as a realistic example.
