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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!
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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.
Rakesh Chawla, Dominik Rätz, Kelly A. Jordan, Gregory Perret
Nuclear Technology | Volume 183 | Number 3 | September 2013 | Pages 321-330
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-A19421
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A comprehensive program of integral experiments, largely based on the measurement of reaction rate distributions, was carried out recently in the PROTEUS zero-power research reactor at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, employing a fuel lattice resembling that of a supercritical light water reactor. The present paper reports on the analysis of a complementary set of measurements, in which the reactivity effects of removing individual pins from the unperturbed, heterogeneously moderated reference lattice were investigated.It has been found that the detailed Monte Carlo modeling of the whole reactor using MCNPX is able - as in the case of the reaction rate distributions - to reproduce the experimental results for the pin removal worths within the achievable statistical accuracy. A comparison of reduced-geometry calculations between MCNPX and the deterministic light water reactor assembly code CASMO-4E has revealed certain discrepancies. On the basis of a reactivity decomposition analysis of the differences between the codes, it has been suggested that these could be due at least partly to CASMO-4E deficiencies in calculating the effect, upon pin removal, of the extra moderation in the neighboring fuel pins.