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 Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
Mar 2026
Jan 2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
April 2026
Nuclear Technology
February 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
Lung Kwang Pan, Cheng Si Tsao
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 135 | Number 1 | May 2000 | Pages 64-72
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE00-A2125
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This work verifies the neutron flux for a modified zero-power-reactor facility using neutron activation. Ten foils are activated and counted to illustrate the precise neutron spectrum at a particular location inside the reactor core through the computerized software Spectrum Analysis by Neutron Detector-II (SAND-II). In addition, neutron spectra derived from 11 different locations are compared with the computational results from the WIMS reactor analytical software, respectively, and then the neutron distribution with various energy groups inside the reactor core is rearranged. A quantified index, AT, is also introduced to compare the experimental and computational results. In this work, the ATs are evaluated as 2.28 ± 0.48, which implies a slight discrepancy between the computational and experimental results. Moreover, a softer neutron spectrum evaluated by the WIMS calculation is verified by further examining the experimental data. Recommendations on how to apply the WIMS calculations are also offered.