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Nuclear Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
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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
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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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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.
M. M. R. Williams
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 183 | Number 1 | May 2016 | Pages 116-125
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE15-62
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The experimental and theoretical results of Authier et al. on the fast burst reactor Caliban have been re-analysed using the Gamma probability distribution function (pdf). The Gamma pdf requires only the mean and variance of the accumulated counts to fully define it. Equations for the mean value and variance of the neutron, precursor and count rate distributions have been developed and solved via the forward form of the probability generating function. We have found excellent agreement, to within experimental error, with the experimental results for the wait time and its variance. In addition, the values of the cumulative pdf obtained via the Gamma pdf are in good agreement with those reported by Authier et al. who used more accurate methods.
