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Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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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BWXT announces nuclear manufacturing plant expansion
BWX Technologies announced today plans to expand and add advanced manufacturing equipment to its manufacturing plant in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada.
A $36.3 million USD ($50M CAD) expansion will increase the plant’s size by 25 percent—to 280,000 square feet—and another $21.7 million USD ($30M CAD) will be spent on new equipment to increase and accelerate its output of large nuclear components. The investment will increase capacity and create more than 200 long-term jobs for skilled workers, engineers, and support staff, according to the company.
Scott D. Ramsey, Gregory J. Hutchens
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 168 | Number 3 | July 2011 | Pages 265-277
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE10-11
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The utility of stochastic point kinetics theory has been demonstrated through the examination of a criticality excursion in a supercritical system. It has been found that a deterministic point kinetics model underpredicts the excursion maximum energy release by up to two orders of magnitude with respect to a counterpart stochastic model. This potentially large underprediction shows that neutron population fluctuations play an important role in the evolution of that system. This work provides a review of the formalism and approximations used to arrive at this conclusion. To broaden the result's applicability, we relax several approximations, leading to the construction of new, nonanalytical expressions. We compare the two sets of results using local sensitivity analysis, which also allows us to assess the impact of potential uncertainties in included model parameters or data. This comparison (presented also for a 235U system) also proves useful in assessing the validity of the approximations under consideration.