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Decommissioning & Environmental Sciences
The mission of the Decommissioning and Environmental Sciences (DES) Division is to promote the development and use of those skills and technologies associated with the use of nuclear energy and the optimal management and stewardship of the environment, sustainable development, decommissioning, remediation, reutilization, and long-term surveillance and maintenance of nuclear-related installations, and sites. The target audience for this effort is the membership of the Division, the Society, and the public at large.
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International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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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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Latest News
TerraPower begins U.K. regulatory approval process
Seattle-based TerraPower signaled its interest this week in building its Natrium small modular reactor in the United Kingdom, the company announced.
TerraPower sent a letter to the U.K.’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, formally establishing its intention to enter the U.K. generic design assessment (GDA) process. This is TerraPower’s first step in deployment of its Natrium technology—a 345-MW sodium fast reactor coupled with a molten salt energy storage unit—on the international stage.
Gary R. Smolen, Raymond C. Lloyd, Tadakuni Matsumoto
Nuclear Technology | Volume 107 | Number 3 | September 1994 | Pages 340-355
Technical Paper | Nuclear Criticality Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT94-A35012
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Critical experiments were performed at the Pacific Northwest Laboratory’s Critical Mass Laboratory in 1987 and 1988 with a heterogeneous array of mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel pins immersed in mixed plutoniumuranium nitrate solutions. The 996 fuel pins, on a 1.40-cm-square pitch, were configured in a cylindrical array. The solution heavy metal concentrations ranged from 4 to 468 g/ℓ and had a Pu/Pu+U ratio of 0.2. Critical experiments were also performed with gadolinium added to the fissile solution. These experiments were designed to simulate conditions in a MOX fuel dissolver, where fuel lumps are moderated by aqueous solutions containing fissile nuclides, with and without a soluble neutron poison. For the experimental conditions examined, it was determined that the critical size of the system increased as the heavy metal concentration increased. The criticality data were used to validate two versions of the SCALE computer code system and the 27-energy-group cross-section library, derived from the Evaluated Nuclear Data File B Version IV. The calculational results indicate that SCALE-2 has some difficulty in modeling these systems. Modifications in SCALE-4 have led to more accurate keff results.