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.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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
Jul 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2025
Nuclear Technology
August 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Remembering ANS member Gil Brown
Brown
The nuclear community is mourning the loss of Gilbert Brown, who passed away on July 11 at the age of 77 following a battle with cancer.
Brown, an American Nuclear Society Fellow and an ANS member for nearly 50 years, joined the faculty at Lowell Technological Institute—now the University of Massachusetts–Lowell—in 1973 and remained there for the rest of his career. He eventually became director of the UMass Lowell nuclear engineering program. After his retirement, he remained an emeritus professor at the university.
Sukesh Aghara, chair of the Nuclear Engineering Department Heads Organization, noted in an email to NEDHO members and others that “Gil was a relentless advocate for nuclear energy and a deeply respected member of our professional community. He was also a kind and generous friend—and one of the reasons I ended up at UMass Lowell. He served the university with great dedication. . . . Within NEDHO, Gil was a steady presence and served for many years as our treasurer. His contributions to nuclear engineering education and to this community will be dearly missed.”
Christophe Suteau, Maurice Chiron, Gilles Arnaud
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 147 | Number 1 | May 2004 | Pages 43-55
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE04-A2417
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This study proposes an improvement of the general formalism for calculating gamma-ray buildup factors in multilayer shields developed by Assad et al. The main modification concerns the treatment of the double-layer shield formed by the two first layers of a multilayer shield. Instead of replacing the double-layer shield with an equivalent thickness of the layer of the second material, the improved general formalism replaces it with a single-layer shield made of an appropriate material. The determination of the appropriate material is implemented into MERCURE-6.1 thanks to neural networks trained on a large set of various configurations.One-dimensional comparisons with the TWODANT transport Sn code shows the accuracy of the new formalism for shields composed of three and five layers. Indeed, for three-layer shields with an infinitesimal second layer and for multilayer shields composed of numerous thin layers (more than 15), MERCURE-6.1 matches the reference data quite well. The MERCURE-6.1 ability to solve three-dimensional realistic cases is highlighted by comparisons to the TRIPOLI-4 and MCNP-4C Monte Carlo codes.