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
Latest Magazine Issues
Mar 2026
Jan 2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
April 2026
Nuclear Technology
February 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
NRC unveils Part 53 final rule
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has finalized its new regulatory framework for advanced reactors that officials believe will accelerate, simplify, and reduce burdens in the new reactor licensing process.
The final rule arrives more than a year ahead of an end-of-2027 deadline set in the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA), the 2019 law that formally directed the NRC to develop a new, technology-inclusive regulatory approach. The resulting rule—10 CFR Part 53, “Risk-Informed, Technology-Inclusive Regulatory Framework for Advanced Reactors”—is commonly referred to as Part 53.
Zhanpeng Huang, Yunki Jo, Qingming He, Liangzhi Cao, Hongchun Wu, Deokjung Lee
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 199 | Number 9 | September 2025 | Pages 1391-1405
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2024.2438570
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This study introduces a novel DXTRAN-based weight window generator (DWWG) for variance reduction in Monte Carlo (MC) radiation shielding calculations implemented in the MCS code developed at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology. DWWG eliminates the iterative generation required by traditional weight window generators (WWGs) while ensuring target region scoring through the embedded DXTRAN. By incorporating virtual tracks of DXTRAN into the importance estimation, DWWG produces high-quality weight windows. Performance verification of two radiation shielding problems demonstrated that weight windows generated by DWWG, when combined with direct simulation or DXTRAN, yielded increased figures of merit and reduced relative standard deviations. These results establish DWWG as an effective WWG for variance reduction in MC simulations.