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.
P. E. Labeau, Z. Ould Amar
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 126 | Number 2 | June 1997 | Pages 146-157
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE97-A24468
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Monte Carlo games especially designed for probabilistic dynamics problems have been shown to be very efficient for the calculation of a pressurized water reactor (PWR) pressurizer unreliability. However, these methods rely on the implicit hypothesis that transition rates and probabilities, as well as control means response times, can be precisely determined. But reality is different: Because of a lack of knowledge, only crude estimations of transition rates can be obtained. Moreover, control device response times cannot be assumed constant for rapid transients. Therefore, considering distributed values of these quantities seems more realistic. Several attempts to take into account these uncertainties, while conserving as many advantages as possible of the high-efficiency simulation techniques, are summarized. The PWR pressurizer application is used to compare the capabilities of the proposed methods.