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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!
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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.
H. Märten, D. Richter, D. Seeliger, W. D. Fromm, R. Böttger, H. Klein
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 106 | Number 3 | November 1990 | Pages 353-366
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE90-A29063
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The 252Cf neutron spectrum is measured at high energies with a miniature ionization chamber and two different NE-213 neutron detectors. The gamma-ray background and the main cosmic background caused by muons were suppressed by applying efficient pulse-shape discrimination. On the basis of two-dimensional spectroscopy of the neutron time-of-flight and scintillation pulse height, the sliding bias method is used to minimize experimental uncertainties. The experimental data, corrected for several systematic influences, confirm earlier results that show negative deviations from a reference Maxwellian distribution with a 1.42-MeV spectrum “temperature” for neutron energies above 6 MeV. Experimental results of this work are compared with various statistical model approaches to the 252Cf(sf) neutron spectrum.