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
Jun 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
July 2026
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2026
Latest News
Breaking ground on a new approach to construction
The drive to Kairos Power’s reactor demonstration site in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is not only scenic—it’s historic. Nearly 85 years ago, roughly 30,000 construction workers transformed orchards and farmland into a key Manhattan Project site. Depending on your route, you may pass by one of the three gatehouses that were once military checkpoints controlling access to Atomic Energy Commission production facilities.
H. Alan Robitaille, John S. Hewitt
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 63 | Number 4 | August 1977 | Pages 391-400
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE77-A27056
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The spectrum of neutrons in thermal pseudo-equilibrium with a mixture of partially hydrogenated terphenyls and high-boiling polymers, an organic material known commercially as HB40, has been measured at room temperature. The spectrum was measured in each of seven mixtures of HB40 and a thermal-neutron absorber, trimethyl borate, in various concentrations. The spectra were determined by the time-of-flight method using the University of Toronto linear electron accelerator as a pulsed source of fast neutrons. These spectra were compared with those calculated using several different bound-hydrogen approximations to the actual energy transfer kernel for the mixture. Of these approximations, the best agreement between theory and experiment occurred for a scattering kernel derived using the diphenyl and the polyethylene scattering kernels, combined according to a weighting scheme reflecting the degree of hydrogenation of the organic material.