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.
Division Spotlight
Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2025
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.
R. T. Santoro, R. G. Alsmiller, Jr., J. M. Barnes, G. T. Chapman
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 78 | Number 3 | July 1981 | Pages 259-272
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE81-A20303
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Integral experiments that measure the transport of ∼14-MeV deuterium-tritium (D-T) neutrons through laminated slabs of proposed fusion reactor shield materials have been carried out at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Measured and calculated neutron and gamma-ray energy spectra are compared as a function of the thickness and composition of Type 304 stainless steel, borated polyethylene (BP), and Hevimet (a tungsten alloy), and as a function of detector position behind these materials. The measured data were obtained by means of an NE-213 liquid scintillator using pulse-shape discrimination methods to resolve neutron and gamma-ray pulse-height data and spectral unfolding methods to convert these data to energy spectra. The calculated data were obtained using two-dimensional discrete-ordinates radiation transport methods in a complex calculational network that takes into account the energy-angle dependence of the D-T neutrons and the nonphysical anomalies of the Sn method. The transport calculations incorporate ENDF/B-IV cross-section data from the VITAMIN C data library. The measured and calculated neutron energy spectra are in good agreement behind slab configurations of Type 304 stainless steel and BP (∼10% for all neutron energies >850 keV). When 5 cm of Hevimet are added to a 45-cm-thick Type 304 stainless steel plus BP slab assembly, the agreement is less favorable. The agreement among the measured and calculated gamma-ray spectra for energies >750 keV ranges from ∼25% to a factor of ∼5 depending on the slab composition.
