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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Researchers use one-of-a-kind expertise and capabilities to test fuels of tomorrow
At the Idaho National Laboratory Hot Fuel Examination Facility, containment box operator Jake Maupin moves a manipulator arm into position around a pencil-thin nuclear fuel rod. He is preparing for a procedure that he and his colleagues have practiced repeatedly in anticipation of this moment in the hot cell.
Richard Sanchez
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 177 | Number 1 | May 2014 | Pages 19-34
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE12-95
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We investigate the degeneracy of the first-order PN equations and construct interface and boundary conditions that ensure a unique solution. Our technique is based on establishing an equivalence between the first- and second-order PN equations and showing that the (regular) second-order equations with opposite parity to N are nondegenerate. Assuming bounded angular flux moments and sources, we derive interface and boundary conditions for the regular second-order equations that, via the equivalence, are those to be used with the first-order PN equations. While providing independent derivations, our results reproduce those derived using solid harmonic expansions by Davison and Rumyantsev in the 1950s.