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Division Spotlight
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.
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!
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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.
T. M. Tran, J. Ligou
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 79 | Number 3 | November 1981 | Pages 269-277
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE81-A19404
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The time-dependent linear Fokker-Planck equation governing the transport of fast ions in a spherical host medium is solved in the suprathermal energy range, including both continuous slowing down and angular diffusion. Because of the parabolic nature of the angular dispersion term, an implicit time-centered scheme is proposed. On the other hand, a second-order diamond approximation in energy and space is chosen to avoid the spurious numerical diffusion driven by the usual first-order methods. The last variable, the pitch angle cosine, is discretized by centered finite differences. Good accuracy is demonstrated when comparing the results of the proposed method with the “exact” values given in the literature for some benchmark problems or by checking energy and particle balance equations. A numerical code (CIRCE) based on this scheme has been developed; it can be coupled to standard one-dimensional hydrodynamics codes after a few straightforward modifications.