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Division Spotlight
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
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!
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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.
Timothy J. Donovan, Yaron Danon
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 143 | Number 3 | March 2003 | Pages 226-239
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE03-A2332
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Monte Carlo algorithms are developed to calculate the ensemble-average particle leakage through the boundaries of a two-dimensional binary stochastic material. The mixture is specified within a rectangular area and consists of a fixed number of disks of constant radius randomly embedded in a matrix material. The algorithms are extensions of the proposal of Zimmerman et al., using chord-length sampling (CLS) to eliminate the need to explicitly model the geometry of the mixture. Two variations are considered. The first algorithm uses CLS for both material regions. The second algorithm employs limited CLS (LCLS), using only CLS in the matrix material. Ensemble-average leakage results are computed for a range of material interaction coefficients and compared against benchmark results for both accuracy and efficiency. Both algorithms are exact for purely absorbing materials and provide decreasing accuracy as scattering is increased in the matrix material. The LCLS algorithm shows a better accuracy than the CLS algorithm for all cases while maintaining an equivalent or better efficiency. Accuracy and efficiency problems with the CLS algorithm are due principally to assumptions made in determining the chord-length distribution within the disks.