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
Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2025
Latest News
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
C. Vaglio-Gaudard, A. Santamarina, P. Blaise, O. Litaize, A. Lyoussi, G. Noguère, J. M. Ruggieri, J. F. Vidal
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 166 | Number 2 | October 2010 | Pages 89-106
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE09-91
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Programme d'Etude du Réflecteur Lourd dans Eole (PERLE) critical experiment was recently performed in the EOLE zero-power reactor to provide representative experimental data for heavy stainless steel (SS) reflector physics. It is a UO2 regular 27 × 27 square core surrounded by a 22-cm-thick SS block. The neutron source presents the same spectrum as Gen-III pressurized water reactors (PWRs).The analysis of measurements with the TRIPOLI4 reference Monte Carlo calculations notably aims at validating 56Fe nuclear data in the JEFF3.1.1 library. Large uncertainties are still associated with 56Fe nuclear data, in particular for the inelastic cross section ([approximate]10% at 1) since considerable discrepancies have been observed between various international evaluations of the inelastic level.This paper is dedicated to the analysis of the PERLE experiment. The reactivity worth of the PERLE heavy reflector was measured and compared with the efficiency of both the water reflector and the standard PWR reflector (2-cm-SS baffle). The radial power distribution at the core/reflector interface was measured by direct gamma spectrometry on fuel pins. The TRIPOLI4 analysis gives satisfactory results. The flux attenuation with SS penetration was measured by miniature fission chambers and metallic activation foils, using the fast, intermediate, and thermal response function. Interpretation of flux attenuation measurements shows calculation/experiment discrepancies within the experimental uncertainty. These results highlight that the 56Fe cross sections in the JEFF3.1.1 library have been evaluated accurately.
