ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
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Division Spotlight
Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
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.
Cheol Ho Pyeon, Takahiro Yagi, Kiichi Sukawa, Yoshimasa Yamaguchi, Tsuyoshi Misawa
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 177 | Number 2 | June 2014 | Pages 156-168
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE13-21
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Experimental studies on the thorium-loaded accelerator-driven system (ADS) were conducted at the Kyoto University Critical Assembly. Mockup experiments were carried out in both the critical and subcritical states to investigate the influence of different thermal neutron profiles on the thorium capture and fission reactions. Thorium plate irradiation experiments for the thorium capture and fission reactions demonstrate fission reactions in the critical state, and the calculated-to-experiment values of reaction rates show accuracy within a relative difference of ∼30%. In the ADS experiments with an external neutron source (14-MeV neutrons and 100-MeV protons), subcritical experiments were carried out in the thorium-loaded cores to investigate the influence of different thermal neutron profiles on thorium capture reaction rates by the measurement of 115In(n,γ)116mIn reactions. The results reveal the difference between reaction rate distributions attributed to varying not only the neutron spectrum of the core but also the external neutron source. A comparison between the measured and calculated reaction rate distributions reflects the accuracy of reaction-rate analyses for the thorium-loaded ADS experiments with an external neutron source. Additionally, kinetic experiments were carried out to deduce the prompt neutron decay constants and subcriticality by the pulsed neutron method.
