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.
Division Spotlight
Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2025
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.
Yasunori Yamamura, Tamotsu Sekiya
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 63 | Number 2 | June 1977 | Pages 213-217
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE77-A27030
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Wigner-type continuous slowing down theory is derived from the physical point of view, considering the neutron balance in lethargy space, and is applied to the calculation of neutron spectra in fast-reactor compositions, where the moderating effect of inelastic scattering is very important. The present theory corresponds to the macroscopic representation of the moderating process of neutrons. Its single moderating parameter, (u), is defined as the ratio of slowing down density, q(u), to collision integral, B(u), i.e., This parameter has the physical meaning of “mean-free-path” in lethargy space and is numerically calculated by an iterative technique. The validity of the present formalism is tested by comparing numerical calculations of neutron spectra for some fast-reactor compositions with neutron spectra computed by Monte Carlo simulation.