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
Aerospace Nuclear Science & Technology
Organized to promote the advancement of knowledge in the use of nuclear science and technologies in the aerospace application. Specialized nuclear-based technologies and applications are needed to advance the state-of-the-art in aerospace design, engineering and operations to explore planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond, plus enhance the safety of air travel, especially high speed air travel. Areas of interest will include but are not limited to the creation of nuclear-based power and propulsion systems, multifunctional materials to protect humans and electronic components from atmospheric, space, and nuclear power system radiation, human factor strategies for the safety and reliable operation of nuclear power and propulsion plants by non-specialized personnel and more.
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.
Jay Basken, Jeffery D. Lewins
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 122 | Number 3 | March 1996 | Pages 407-416
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE96-A24175
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Accurate solutions of the reactor kinetics equations in a lumped model with time-varying reactivity have been obtained using a spreadsheet on a personal computer (PC)/workstation from a straightforward power series recurrence relation. These have been shown to converge readily over time steps of ∼ s in models of a thermal reactor. Solutions over such macrosteps can readily be extended to durations of interest (∼100 s). Examples are given for both a ramp reactivity input and an oscillating reactivity. This latter shows in a direct fashion the first-order phase distortion and the second-order effect on power level that are generally associated with perturbation solutions that have to be taken to second order. The method applies also to fast reactors. It is concluded that accurate calculations of thermal and fast reactor transients, obtained analytically with considerable difficulty, are readily available to the student on a PC.