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Nuclear Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
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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
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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.
Anil Kumar
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 81 | Number 1 | May 1982 | Pages 66-74
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE82-A19595
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The neutron collision escape probability from a medium depends on the shape of spatial distribution of the source. The case of a uniform or flat source distribution has been investigated extensively from time to time. In the present work, the case of bare homogeneous reactor assemblies having a centrally peaked neutron source distribution has been analyzed for predicting collision escape probability as a function of assembly size measured in terms of the optical mean chord length . An approximation, known as the modified Wigner rational approximation, is derived and is given by where pE(W) stands for the collision escape probability from a bare homogeneous reactor assembly; ϵ1 and ϵ2 are geometry-dependent parameters. These parameters have been determined for infinite slab, infinite cylinder, sphere, cube, and finite cylinders of height-to-diameter ratio varying from 0.1 to 20. It is shown that it is possible to predict the collision escape probability within approximately ±2% of the exact value for , ranging from 0 to 20 mean-free-paths (mfp). Generally, for a given the collision escape probability value for the centrally peaked source is lower than that for the uniform source. But it is found that for very thin infinite slab assemblies of optical mean chord length 1.5 mfp, the collision escape probability for centrally peaked source distribution is higher than that for uniform source distribution. The reason for this anomaly is discussed.