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
Apr 2026
Jan 2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2026
Nuclear Technology
February 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
DTRA’s advancements in nuclear and radiological detection
A new, more complex nuclear age has begun. Echoing the tensions of the Cold War amid rapidly evolving nuclear and radiological threats, preparedness in the modern age is a contest of scientific innovation. The Research and Development Directorate (RD) at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) is charged with winning this contest.
Alexis Maldonado, Christopher M. Perfetti
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 200 | Number 1 | March 2026 | Pages S546-S564
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2025.2465220
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Nuclear reactor multiphysics modeling and simulation enable advanced reactor system design by understanding, analyzing, and evaluating how a system will react over time to various configurations, scenarios, and input conditions. However, high-fidelity coupled transient multiphysics modeling and simulations for a reactor core are computationally expensive. This work develops a Coupled Adjoint-based Perturbation Theory for dynAmIcs and heat traNsfer (CAPTAIN) framework to rapidly quantify the impact of uncertainty to the overall transient response by generating first-order sensitivity coefficients for temperature, power, and delayed neutron precursor concentrations using forward and adjoint solutions. This work presents initial proof of principle of an adjoint-based perturbation theory method for coupled heat conduction and point kinetics simulations. This methodology is verified using models of a simple nuclear system with perturbations to several inputs and achieves promising results for future uncertainty quantification studies.