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.
R. Gordon, V. E. Schrock, R. N. Stuart, A. J. Kirschbaum
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 17 | Number 4 | December 1963 | Pages 537-546
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE63-A18445
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The distribution of fissions within one fuel pin of a cluster is asymmetrical because of self-shielding and neutron streaming phenomena. An implicit solution of the integral form of the Boltzmann equation indicates that, for a given neutron spectrum, this distribution is primarily a function of three dimensionless parameters: (1) pin radius/neutron mean free path in pin material; (2) pin circle radius/pin radius; and (3) pin radius/fuel element radius. The actual distribution was determined experimentally by detector foils and autoradiographic techniques for various seven-pin, cluster type, gas-cooled fuel elements. The experimental fuel pins were fabricated by winding alternate 0.001 in. thick layers of pure aluminum and enriched uranium (93% U235) on a solid core until the desired pin diameter was reached. Seven of these pins, assembled into a fuel element, were irradiated in the thermal column of a research reactor. The layers of uranium and the uranium detector foils (which had been exposed concurrently) were subsequently autoradiographed and the resulting x-ray film optical density measured on a microdensitometer. The detector foils were also counted in a gamma detector, thus providing a key between relative radioactivity and optical density. It was found that the fission distribution within the center pin of the cluster was symmetrical and could be represented by The fission distribution in the outer pins of the cluster was asymmetrical with respect to the pin center but could be represented by Values of the constants in the above equations are correlated by the first two dimensionless parameters given above but appear to be independent of the third.