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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.
Jeffrey A. Favorite
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 177 | Number 3 | July 2014 | Pages 361-366
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE13-66
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Particle fluxes on surfaces are difficult to calculate with Monte Carlo methods because the score requires a division by the surface-crossing angle cosine, and grazing angles lead to inaccuracies. The traditional method for dealing with this problem was recently extended by recognizing the assumptions that were implicit in its derivation. More recently, a kernel density estimator (KDE) has been proposed to replace the traditional method. In this technical note, example problems from the KDE development are analyzed, and the failure of the traditional method is shown to be due to the invalidity of one of the implicit assumptions, as previously predicted, and the extended theory is used to correct the traditional method.