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 Winter Conference & Expo
November 15–18, 2026
Phoenix, AZ|Arizona Grand Resort & Spa
Latest Magazine Issues
Sep 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
October 2026
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Westinghouse, Nordion, and PSEG team up to produce Co‑60 in the United States
This past January, Westinghouse Electric Company, Nordion, and PSEG Nuclear formalized agreements to implement newly developed cobalt-60 production technology at Units 1 and 2 of PSEG’s Salem nuclear power plant in New Jersey, with the Co-60 to be supplied to Nordion. Through an ongoing joint initiative, the companies aim to harness U.S. pressurized water reactors to produce a key medical isotope and build the first commercial-scale Co-60 production platform in the United States.
V. Deniz
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 40 | Number 2 | May 1970 | Pages 246-253
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE70-A19686
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Criticality codes are in general adjusted to reproduce measured values of critical bucklings which furnish (k∞ − 1)/M2. The parameter adjusted is k∞, the calculation of leakage being assumed to be well made. However, in the case of heterogeneous systems in particular, the slowing down region is not easy to study, and one has perforce to make certain simplifying assumptions which reflect on the calculated value of the age. Since a proper estimation of leakage is necessary for a code adjusted on clean critical systems to be valid when extrapolated to large power reactors where leakages are different, it is of practical interest to be able to use some experimental data for checking age calculations and searching for improvements if necessary. Pulsed experiments furnish the necessary experimental data, since measurements made on a given lattice for different block sizes permit the separation of multiplication from leakage. A method of analysis is presented and applied to experiments on natural uranium/graphite lattices. An effective age-diffusion expression in which k∞/p, L2 and the mean lifetime lo are evaluated in terms of buckling-dependent spectra, is transformed into a linear equation which permits simultaneous adjustment of p and of the age. Our analysis shows that pulsed experiments can be sufficiently precise for age adjustments. However, since these experiments are performed at far-from-critical bucklings, the precision is not sufficient for adjusting p, and hence k∞. We conclude that these experiments are very useful for adjusting leakage, but this adjustment being made, critical experiments remain necessary for the subsequent adjustment of k∞ with precision.