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 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Jul 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2026
Nuclear Technology
August 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
In transition: Commercializing fusion power
Commercial fusion power is closer than ever. There are now around 30 U.S. fusion companies, several of which claim to be on track to connect to the grid as early as the 2030s.
Tokamak and laser inertial confinement approaches benefit from decades of research at facilities such as the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and ITER, with alternative concepts including stellarator, magnetic mirror, and Z-pinch confinement also making notable progress as private and government funding for fusion increases.
Rubin Goldstein, Louis M. Shotkin
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 38 | Number 2 | November 1969 | Pages 94-103
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE69-A19513
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
By means of approximate numerical solutions obtained from a first-order correction to the prompt-jump approximation, good agreement is found with exact numerical solutions of the kinetics equations. Accuracies of <0.1% are obtainable for iterative time steps of as much as 1 sec, provided the reactor remains below prompt-critical [i.e., k(t) < $1]. The accuracy increases as l/β → 0, i.e., as the prompt-neutron lifetime becomes smaller or as the reactor becomes “faster.” This is true for both fast- and slow-reactivity insertion rates, C. Two methods for handling rapid reactivity insertion rates are discussed. One (Method A) is more applicable for C ≈ 1 → 50 $/sec, and the other (Method B, which effectively shifts the time scale) is more applicable for C ≳ 50 $/sec. In the one delayed-neutron-group approximation, analytic results are presented for arbitrary reactivity insertion rates and comparisons are made with previous methods.