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
Mathematics & Computation
Division members promote the advancement of mathematical and computational methods for solving problems arising in all disciplines encompassed by the Society. They place particular emphasis on numerical techniques for efficient computer applications to aid in the dissemination, integration, and proper use of computer codes, including preparation of computational benchmark and development of standards for computing practices, and to encourage the development on new computer codes and broaden their use.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Argonne opens registration for D&D training course
Registration is open for Argonne National Laboratory’s Facility Decommissioning Training Course, a four-day instruction designed for those responsible for the decontamination and decommissioning of nuclear facilities and who are looking to understand the full breadth and depth of the D&D processes.
The next session will be held July 16–19 in Santa Fe, N.M. Information on the course and how to register can be found here.
Jan Dufek, Waclaw Gudowski
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 152 | Number 3 | March 2006 | Pages 274-283
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE06-2
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new adaptive stochastic approximation method for an efficient Monte Carlo calculation of steady-state conditions in thermal reactor cores is described. The core conditions that we consider are spatial distributions of power, neutron flux, coolant density, and strongly absorbing fission products like 135Xe. These distributions relate to each other; thus, the steady-state conditions are described by a system of nonlinear equations. When a Monte Carlo method is used to evaluate the power or neutron flux, then the task turns to a nonlinear stochastic root-finding problem that is usually solved in the iterative manner by stochastic optimization methods. One of those methods is stochastic approximation where efficiency depends on a sequence of stepsize and sample size parameters. The stepsize generation is often based on the well-known Robbins-Monro algorithm; however, the efficient generation of the sample size (number of neutrons simulated at each iteration step) was not published yet. The proposed method controls both the stepsize and the sample size in an efficient way; according to the results, the method reaches the highest possible convergence rate.