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
ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2025
Nuclear Technology
April 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
Nichols
The Oak Ridger has published the latest in a series of articles about General Kenneth D. Nichols, the Manhattan Project, and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The series has been produced by Nichols’ grandniece Barbara Rogers Scollin and Oak Ridge (Tenn.) city historian David Ray Smith. Gen. Nichols (1907–2000) was the district engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District during the Manhattan Project.
As Smith and Scollin explain, Nichols “had supervision of the research and development connected with, and the design, construction, and operation of, all plants required to produce plutonium-239 and uranium-235, including the construction of the towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. The responsibility of his position was massive as he oversaw a workforce of both military and civilian personnel of approximately 125,000; his Oak Ridge office became the center of the wartime atomic energy’s activities.”
Guoli Li, Zhu Yang, Hui Lin, Jiabing Huang, Jia Jing, Aidong Wu, Yican Wu
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 3 | December 2009 | Pages 815-819
MC Calculations | Special Issue on the 11th International Conference on Radiation Shielding and the 15th Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division (PART 3) / Radiation Protection | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A9311
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Monte Carlo method is a stochastic statistic algorithm. It is one of the most accurate dose calculation methods, but its application in clinic is limited because of the long computation time. Generally, to accelerate Monte Carlo simulation and reduce stochastic noise, a digital filtering technique is used to smooth a rough dose distribution (includes evident noise) to a satisfied one. Different types of filters have been applied, such as Gaussian filters, Savitzky-Golay filters, etc., but the ability of a single filtering filter is limited. Therefore, a hybrid filter combining those filtering techniques was used. Two types of mixture methods - parallel and cascade - with three-dimensional Gaussian and Savitzky-Golay filters were researched. In addition, a method that simplifies the mixture filter structure using an equivalent convolution kernel based on convolution theory was introduced. With simulation data from a standard phantom, the rough dose distributions and the dose distribution smoothed by the two types of mixture filters were compared with that of the "benchmark" one. Test results showed that the two types of mixture filters can suppress much of the noise added in Monte Carlo dose distributions and enhance its visualization. As for the research's test cases, the filtering effect of the cascade mixture filter was slightly better than that of the parallel mixture filter. Filter combinations can provide favorable filtering effects. The filtering effects of different mixture methods are not uniform. The cascade mixture filter has a better filtering effect than the parallel mixture filter.