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Division Spotlight
Young Members Group
The Young Members Group works to encourage and enable all young professional members to be actively involved in the efforts and endeavors of the Society at all levels (Professional Divisions, ANS Governance, Local Sections, etc.) as they transition from the role of a student to the role of a professional. It sponsors non-technical workshops and meetings that provide professional development and networking opportunities for young professionals, collaborates with other Divisions and Groups in developing technical and non-technical content for topical and national meetings, encourages its members to participate in the activities of the Groups and Divisions that are closely related to their professional interests as well as in their local sections, introduces young members to the rules and governance structure of the Society, and nominates young professionals for awards and leadership opportunities available to members.
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.
Jia (Jason) Hou, Hangbok Choi, Kostadin Ivanov
Nuclear Technology | Volume 186 | Number 3 | June 2014 | Pages 305-316
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-137
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A lattice code, MICROX-2, was assessed for its neutronics calculation performance with new cross-section libraries. First, the new cross-section libraries were generated based on ENDF/B-VII release 0. A total of 386 nuclides were processed, including 10 thermal scattering nuclides. The updated NJOY system and MICROR code were used to process nuclear data and convert them into the MICROX-2 library format. The energy group structure of the new library was optimized for both the thermal and fast neutron spectrum systems based on the Contributon and Pointwise Cross Section Driven (CPXSD) method, resulting in a total of 1173 energy groups. Second, a series of pin-cell–level benchmark calculations was performed against experimental measurements and numerical calculations performed by the deterministic and Monte Carlo codes for multiplication factors and reaction rate ratios. Both the homogeneous and heterogeneous pin-cell calculations were conducted for 15 cases. The results of MICROX-2 calculations show good agreement with the reference values. The arithmetic average errors of k∞ for the homogeneous and heterogeneous lattices are 0.30% and 0.44%, respectively. For the finite lattices (five cases for water reactor fuels), the average error of keff is 0.32%. These errors are due to the combined effect of the solution method and the cross-section library. Especially for the fast reactor cases, the prediction of the physics parameter by MICROX-2 deteriorates when the fuel volume increases, which is mostly due to the simplified resonance self-shielding model.