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 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Jul 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2026
Nuclear Technology
July 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
The deadline arrives: Checking in on the Reactor Pilot Program
On May 23, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14301, “Reforming Nuclear Reactor Testing at the DOE,” which instructed the Department of Energy to create a Reactor Pilot Program (RPP)—a new system in which companies could pursue DOE authorization to build and test their first-of-a-kind nuclear technologies. EO 14301 set an ambitious goal for that program: three reactors achieving criticality by July 4, 2026.
Hugh K. Clark
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 54 | Number 1 | May 1974 | Pages 55-71
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE74-A23393
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The approximation inherent in using cell-averaged homogenized cross sections in computations for heterogeneous reactors is investigated for slab reactors by discrete integral transport (DIT) theory. Small, but significant, differences in reactivity and anisotropies in migration area are found. The DIT technique is extended to include an exact asymptotic reactor boundary condition and a separable transverse flux. Approximate solutions are investigated in which a reactor is subdivided into a number of zones with the coupling between zones expressed in terms of the directional currents at the interfaces. The sticking probabilities for these currents are derived from Taylor expansions of the source through linear terms. Generally good results are obtained when the zones correspond with the cells in a reactor.