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.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 15–18, 2026
Phoenix, AZ|Arizona Grand Resort & Spa
Latest Magazine Issues
Sep 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
October 2026
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Westinghouse, Nordion, and PSEG team up to produce Co‑60 in the United States
This past January, Westinghouse Electric Company, Nordion, and PSEG Nuclear formalized agreements to implement newly developed cobalt-60 production technology at Units 1 and 2 of PSEG’s Salem nuclear power plant in New Jersey, with the Co-60 to be supplied to Nordion. Through an ongoing joint initiative, the companies aim to harness U.S. pressurized water reactors to produce a key medical isotope and build the first commercial-scale Co-60 production platform in the United States.
Nam Zin Cho, Chang Je Park
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 124 | Number 3 | November 1996 | Pages 417-430
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE96-A17920
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We solve the neutron diffusion equation by a wavelet Galerkin scheme in this paper. Wavelet functions are generated by dilation and translation operation on a scaling function. The wavelet functions are localized in space and have a recursive property, so these properties may be utilized to solve a differential equation that has severe “stiffness. ”The wavelet Galerkin method (WGM) represents the solution as a summation of Daubechies’ scaling functions, which are also used as the weighting function. The Daubechies’ scaling functions have the properties of orthogonality and high smoothness. Unlike the finite element method, the weighting function is the Daubechies’ scaling function, and the unknowns determined are not the fluxes of the nodes but the coefficients of the scaling functions. The scaling functions are overlapping in the nodes and require special treatment at interfaces between nodes and at the boundaries. We tested the WGM with several diffusion theory problems in reactor physics. The solutions are very accurate with increasing Daubechies’ order and dilation order. The boundary conditions are also satisfied very well. In particular, the WGM provides very accurate solutions for heterogeneous problems in which the flux distribution exhibits very steep gradients.We conclude that it is worthwhile investigating further the WGM for reactor physics problems and that numerical integration and acceleration of the matrix equation must be improved so as to reduce computing time.