ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
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
Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Jun 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2024
Nuclear Technology
July 2024
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
NRC engineers share their expertise at the University of Puerto Rico
Robert Roche-Rivera and Marcos Rolón-Acevedo are licensed professional engineers who work at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. They are also alumni of the University of Puerto Rico–Mayagüez (UPRM) and have been sharing their knowledge and experience with students at their alma mater since last year, serving as adjunct professors in the university’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. During the 2023–2024 school year, they each taught two courses: Fundamentals of Nuclear Science and Engineering, and Nuclear Power Plant Engineering.
Nathaniel R. Morgan, Billy J. Archer
Nuclear Technology | Volume 207 | Number 1 | December 2021 | Pages S147-S175
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2021.1913034
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The intent of this paper is to discuss the history and origins of Lagrangian hydrodynamic methods for simulating shock-driven flows. The majority of the pioneering research occurred within the Manhattan Project. A range of Lagrangian hydrodynamic schemes were created between 1943 and 1948 by John von Neumann, Rudolf Peierls, Tony Skyrme, and Robert Richtmyer. These schemes varied significantly from each other; however, they all used a staggered grid and finite difference approximations of the derivatives in the governing equations, where the first scheme was by von Neumann. These ground-breaking schemes were principally published in Los Alamos laboratory reports that were eventually declassified many decades after authorship, which motivates us to document the work and describe the accompanying history in a paper that is accessible to the broader scientific community. Furthermore, we seek to correct historical omissions on the pivotal contributions made by Peierls and Skyrme to creating robust Lagrangian hydrodynamic methods for simulating shock-driven flows. Understanding the history of Lagrangian hydrodynamic methods can help explain the origins of many modern schemes and may inspire the pursuit of new schemes.