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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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!
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Powering the future: How the DOE is fueling nuclear fuel cycle research and development
As global interest in nuclear energy surges, the United States must remain at the forefront of research and development to ensure national energy security, advance nuclear technologies, and promote international cooperation on safety and nonproliferation. A crucial step in achieving this is analyzing how funding and resources are allocated to better understand how to direct future research and development. The Department of Energy has spearheaded this effort by funding hundreds of research projects across the country through the Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP). This initiative has empowered dozens of universities to collaborate toward a nuclear-friendly future.
Kirk A. Mathews, Rodney L. Miller, Charles R. Brennan
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 136 | Number 2 | October 2000 | Pages 178-201
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE00-A2152
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The linear characteristic (LC) method is extended to unstructured meshes of tetrahedral cells in three-dimensional Cartesian coordinates. For each ordinate in a discrete ordinates sweep, each cell is split into subcells along a line parallel to the ordinate. Direct affine transformations among appropriate oblique Cartesian coordinate systems for the faces and interior of each cell and subcell are used to simplify the characteristic transport through each subcell. This approach is straightforward and eliminates computationally expensive trigonometric functions. An efficient and well-conditioned technique for evaluating the required integral moments of exponential functions is presented. Various test problems are used to demonstrate (a) the approach to cubic convergence as the mesh is refined, (b) insensitivity to the details of irregular meshes, and (c) numerical robustness. These tests also show that meshes should represent volumes of regions with curved as well as planar boundaries exactly and that cells should have optical thicknesses throughout the mesh that are more or less equal. A hybrid Monte Carlo/discrete ordinates method, together with MCNP, is used to distinguish between error introduced by the angular and the spatial quadratures. We conclude that the LC method should be a practical and reliable scheme for these meshes, presuming that the cells are not optically too thick.