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The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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
Can hydrogen be the transportation fuel in an otherwise nuclear economy?
Let’s face it: The global economy should be powered primarily by nuclear power. And it probably will by the end of this century, with a still-significant assist from renewables and hydro. Once nuclear systems are dominant, the costs come down to where gas is now; and when carbon emissions are reduced to a small portion of their present state, it will become obvious that most other sources are only good in niche settings. I mean, why use small modular reactors to load-follow when they can just produce that power instead of buffering it?
Christopher M. Perfetti, Bradley T. Rearden, William R. Martin
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 182 | Number 3 | March 2016 | Pages 332-353
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE15-12
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The need to model geometrically complex systems with improved ease of use and fidelity and the desire to extend the Tools for Sensitivity and UNcertainty Analysis Methodology Implementation (TSUNAMI) analysis to advanced applications have motivated the development of a methodology for calculating sensitivity coefficients in continuous-energy (CE) Monte Carlo applications. The Contributon-Linked eigenvalue sensitivity/Uncertainty estimation via Track length importance CHaracterization (CLUTCH) and Iterated Fission Probability (IFP) eigenvalue sensitivity methods were recently implemented in the CE KENO framework of the SCALE code system to enable TSUNAMI-3D to perform eigenvalue sensitivity calculations using CE Monte Carlo methods. This paper provides a detailed description of the theory behind the CLUTCH method and describes in detail its implementation. This work also explores the improvements in eigenvalue sensitivity coefficient accuracy that can be gained through use of CE sensitivity methods and compares several sensitivity methods in terms of computational efficiency and memory requirements. The IFP and CLUTCH methods produced sensitivity coefficient estimates that matched, and in some cases exceeded, the accuracy of those produced using the multigroup TSUNAMI-3D approach. The CLUTCH method was found to calculate sensitivity coefficients with the highest degree of efficiency and the lowest computational memory footprint for the problems examined.