ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Dec 2025
Jul 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
January 2026
Nuclear Technology
December 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
November 2025
Latest News
Christmas Light
’Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house
No electrons were flowing through even my mouse.
All devices were plugged by the chimney with care
With the hope that St. Nikola Tesla would share.
Claude Mounier, Pietro Mosca
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 179 | Number 2 | February 2015 | Pages 130-147
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE13-63
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The fast neutron fluence is an important parameter for the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) lifetime. The uncertainty estimation of this parameter is crucial to manage the RPV with a suitable safety margin. This work focuses on a facet of the problem that concerns the uncertainty contribution of the spectrum of the fission source for different burnups in a thermal neutron reactor. The main goal of this paper is to assess the effect of a possible uncertainty correlation among the spectra of the fissile nuclei, involved in the fission source, on the response uncertainty. Two main simplifications are assumed to reduce the complexity of the problem. The first simplification concerns the geometry of the transport problem that is chosen to calculate as fast as possible the sensitivities and the different responses. The second simplification is related to the way by which one can take into account the correlations among spectra of different fissile nuclei. Simple ENDF-6 models of the fission spectrum (Maxwell, Watt, and simplified Madland-Nix) are used to define correlations among the fissile spectra through the mean neutron energy of the prompt fission spectrum. Results are given to quantify the effect of these postulated correlations on response uncertainties and are compared to the ones using JENDL-4.0 covariances.