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 Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
Feb 2026
Jul 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
February 2026
Nuclear Technology
January 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Godzilla is helping ITER prepare for tokamak assembly
ITER employees stand by Godzilla, the most powerful commercially available industrial robot available. (Photo: ITER)
Many people are familiar with Godzilla as a giant reptilian monster that emerged from the sea off the coast of Japan, the product of radioactive contamination. These days, there is a new Godzilla, but it has a positive—and entirely fact-based—association with nuclear energy. This one has emerged inside the Tokamak Assembly Preparation Building of ITER in southern France.
Taek Kyum Kim, Chang Hyo Kim
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 127 | Number 3 | November 1997 | Pages 346-357
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE97-A1940
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new optimization method is presented for determining the optimized pressurized water reactor (PWR) fuel-loading pattern in the maximization principle of the end-of-cycle (EOC) core reactivity. The new method utilizes the point reactivity model in deriving the objective function corresponding to the EOC core reactivity as a linear function of the fuel-loading binary variables. It also uses a mixed integer programming algorithm consisting of the branch and bound method and dual linear programming algorithm in order to maximize the EOC core reactivity. The utility of the new optimization method is discussed in terms of numerical examples for the fuel-loading-pattern optimization of the cycle 4 core of the Yonggwang unit 2 PWR plant.