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 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Jul 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2026
Nuclear Technology
August 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
The human factor in licensing and operating the next generation of nuclear plants
As human factors specialists working at the intersection of human performance and nuclear operations, we are witnessing one of the nuclear sector’s most significant transitions in decades. The emergence of small modular reactors, microreactors, and other advanced designs is reshaping the industry’s landscape. Digital instrumentation and controls, passive safety systems, and increased automation are creating opportunities for greater safety margins and more flexible operation. These same features also fundamentally redefine what it means to “operate” a nuclear plant. Interactions among human roles, automation, and passive systems shape how people maintain awareness, exercise judgment, and intervene when necessary. These developments affect both operational realities and the regulatory foundations on which nuclear safety is built.
Ben C. Yee, Brendan Kochunas, Edward W. Larsen
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 193 | Number 7 | July 2019 | Pages 722-745
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2018.1562777
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Multilevel in Space and Energy Diffusion (MSED) method accelerates the iterative convergence of multigroup diffusion eigenvalue problems by performing work on lower-order equations with only one group and/or coarser spatial grids. It consists of two primary components: (1) a grey (one-group) diffusion eigenvalue problem that is solved via Wielandt-shifted power iteration (PI) and (2) a multigrid-in-space linear solver. In previous work, the efficiency of MSED was verified using Fourier analysis and numerical results from a one-dimensional multigroup diffusion code. Since that work, MSED has been implemented as a solver for the coarse-mesh finite difference (CMFD) system in the three-dimensional Michigan Parallel Characteristics Transport (MPACT) code. In this paper, the results from the implementation of MSED in MPACT are presented, and the changes needed to make MSED more suitable for MPACT are described. For problems without feedback, the results in this paper show that MSED can reduce the CMFD run time by an order of magnitude and the overall run time by a factor of 2 to 3 compared to the default CMFD solver in MPACT [PI with the generalized minimal residual (GMRES) method]. For problems with feedback, the convergence of the outer Picard iteration scheme is worsened by the well-converged CMFD solutions produced by the standard MSED method. To overcome this unintuitive deficiency, MSED may be run with looser convergence criteria (a modified version of the MSED method called MSED-L) to circumvent the issue until the multiphysics iteration in MPACT is improved. Results show that MSED-L can reduce the CMFD run time in MPACT by an order of magnitude, without negatively impacting the outer Picard iteration scheme.