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Division Spotlight
Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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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Reboot: Nuclear needs a success . . . anywhere
The media have gleefully resurrected the language of a past nuclear renaissance. Beyond the hype and PR, many people in the nuclear community are taking a more measured view of conditions that could lead to new construction: data center demand, the proliferation of new reactor designs and start-ups, and the sudden ascendance of nuclear energy as the power source everyone wants—or wants to talk about.
Once built, large nuclear reactors can provide clean power for at least 80 years—outlasting 10 to 20 presidential administrations. Smaller reactors can provide heat and power outputs tailored to an end user’s needs. With all the new attention, are we any closer to getting past persistent supply chain and workforce issues and building these new plants? And what will the election of Donald Trump to a second term as president mean for nuclear?
As usual, there are more questions than answers, and most come down to money. Several developers are engaging with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or have already applied for a license, certification, or permit. But designs without paying customers won’t get built. So where are the customers, and what will it take for them to commit?
R. L. French, L. G. Mooney
Nuclear Technology | Volume 10 | Number 3 | March 1971 | Pages 348-365
Technical Paper | Radiation | doi.org/10.13182/NT71-A30969
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Techniques were developed for applying the results of Straker’s recent discrete ordinates calculations of neutron transport in an air-over-ground geometry to predict the neutron -radiation environment produced by the detonation of nuclear weapons. Straker’s results include the spatial, energy, and angle distributions of neutrons at the air-ground interface from source neutrons in each of nine source-energy bands emitted from a point isotropic source 50 ft above the ground. The source-energy bands cover the range from 0.0033 to 15.0 MeV. The energy spectrum of the leakage neutrons from a particular weapon may be integrated over corresponding energy bands toob-tain source intensities which are then multiplied by the transport data for corresponding bands and summed over source energy. The results thus obtained are for Straker’s original air density of 1.1 x 10-3 g/cm3, but they may be sealed to other air densities by use of mass equivalent ranges. A satisfactory adjustment to source heights other than the 50-ft height used in the original calculations may be made with the “first-last collision method” if the source-detector separation is as much as 2 or 3 mean-free-paths (∼1000 ft). When folded with leakage spectra for numerous test devices and adjusted to the proper air density and burst height, Straker’s data give neutron-dose spatial distributions generally within 25% of those measured infield tests.