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
Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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
June 2024
Nuclear Technology
May 2024
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Commercial nuclear innovation "new space" age
In early 2006, a start-up company launched a small rocket from a tiny island in the Pacific. It exploded, showering the island with debris. A year later, a second launch attempt sent a rocket to space but failed to make orbit, burning up in the atmosphere. Another year brought a third attempt—and a third failure. The following month, in September 2008, the company used the last of its funds to launch a fourth rocket. It reached orbit, making history as the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to do so.
E. E. Lewis, C. B. Carrico, G. Palmiotti
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 122 | Number 2 | February 1996 | Pages 194-203
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE96-1
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The variational nodal formulation of the neutron transport equation is generalized to provide spherical harmonics approximations of arbitrary odd order. The even angular parity trial functions within the nodes are complemented by new odd angular parity trial functions at the node interfaces. These are derived from the spherical harmonic continuity conditions presented in the classical work of Rumyantsev. The Yn±n terms are absent for all odd n in the resulting odd-parity trial function sets. This result is shown to be equivalent to requiring the variational nodal matrix that couples even- and odd-parity angular trial functions to be of full rank and yields vacuum and reflected boundary conditions as well as nodal interface conditions within the framework of the variational formulation. Nodal P1, P3, and P5 approximations are implemented in the Argonne National Laboratory code VARIANT, utilizing the existing spatial trial functions in x-y geometry. The accuracy of the approximations is demonstrated on model fixed source and few-group eigenvalue problems. The new interface trial functions have no effect on P1 approximations and yield P3 results that differ very little from those obtained with existing trial functions, even where the P5 approximation leads to further improvement. More significantly, the new trial functions allow P5 or higher order algorithms to be implemented in a consistent straightforward manner.
