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Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
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NC State celebrates 70 years of nuclear engineering education
An early picture of the research reactor building on the North Carolina State University campus. The Department of Nuclear Engineering is celebrating the 70th anniversary of its nuclear engineering curriculum in 2020–2021. Photo: North Carolina State University
The Department of Nuclear Engineering at North Carolina State University has spent the 2020–2021 academic year celebrating the 70th anniversary of its becoming the first U.S. university to establish a nuclear engineering curriculum. It started in 1950, when Clifford Beck, then of Oak Ridge, Tenn., obtained support from NC State’s dean of engineering, Harold Lampe, to build the nation’s first university nuclear reactor and, in conjunction, establish an educational curriculum dedicated to nuclear engineering.
The department, host to the 2021 ANS Virtual Student Conference, scheduled for April 8–10, now features 23 tenure/tenure-track faculty and three research faculty members. “What a journey for the first nuclear engineering curriculum in the nation,” said Kostadin Ivanov, professor and department head.
Edward W. Larsen, Allan B. Wollaber
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 160 | Number 3 | November 2008 | Pages 267-283
Technical Paper | dx.doi.org/10.13182/NSE160-267
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A quantitative theory of angular truncation errors is developed for three-dimensional discrete-ordinates (SN) particle transport calculations. The theory is based on an analysis of a special problem: a localized radially symmetric source in an infinite homogeneous scattering medium, with an arbitrary scattering ratio c satisfying 0 < c < 1. For both the linear Boltzmann equation and the SN equations, we construct and compare analytic solutions of this problem that are asymptotically valid far from the source region. Comparing these analytic solutions, we find that the relative error in the SN solution increases without bound for large distances from the source region but decreases at each fixed spatial point as the scattering ratio or N (the order of the quadrature set) increases. Also, the SN error patterns conform to classic ray effects for small c but not for larger c. We present numerical results that test and validate the theoretical predictions.