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Division Spotlight
Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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
Excelsior University student section awarded community education grant
The American Nuclear Society Student Section at Excelsior University in Albany, N.Y., was awarded a $5,000 grant from the ANS Student Section Strategic Fund initiative for its program, Empowering Tomorrow’s Nuclear Innovators: A Collaborative Approach to Nuclear Technology Education and Awareness.
Paul Lartaud, Philippe Humbert, and Josselin Garnier
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 8 | August 2023 | Pages 1928-1951
Technical papers from: PHYSOR 2022 | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2143705
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In a fissile material, the inherent multiplicity of neutrons born through induced fissions leads to correlations in their detection statistics. The correlations between neutrons can be used to trace back some characteristics of the fissile material. This technique, known as neutron noise analysis, has applications in nuclear safeguards or waste identification. It provides a nondestructive examination method for an unknown fissile material. This is an example of an inverse problem where the cause is inferred from observations of the consequences.
However, neutron correlation measurements are often noisy because of the stochastic nature of the underlying processes. This makes the resolution of the inverse problem more complex since the measurements are strongly dependent on the material characteristics. A minor change in the material properties can lead to very different outputs. Such an inverse problem is said to be ill posed. For an ill-posed inverse problem, the inverse uncertainty quantification is crucial. Indeed, seemingly low noise in the data can lead to strong uncertainties in the estimation of the material properties. Moreover, the analytical framework commonly used to describe neutron correlations relies on strong physical assumptions, and is thus inherently biased.
This paper addresses dual goals. First, surrogate models are used to improve neutron correlation predictions and quantify the errors on those predictions. Then the inverse uncertainty quantification is performed to include the impact of measurement error alongside the residual model bias.