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Fusion Energy
This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
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2021 Student Conference
April 8–10, 2021
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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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NC State celebrates 70 years of nuclear engineering education
An early picture of the research reactor building on the North Carolina State University campus. The Department of Nuclear Engineering is celebrating the 70th anniversary of its nuclear engineering curriculum in 2020–2021. Photo: North Carolina State University
The Department of Nuclear Engineering at North Carolina State University has spent the 2020–2021 academic year celebrating the 70th anniversary of its becoming the first U.S. university to establish a nuclear engineering curriculum. It started in 1950, when Clifford Beck, then of Oak Ridge, Tenn., obtained support from NC State’s dean of engineering, Harold Lampe, to build the nation’s first university nuclear reactor and, in conjunction, establish an educational curriculum dedicated to nuclear engineering.
The department, host to the 2021 ANS Virtual Student Conference, scheduled for April 8–10, now features 23 tenure/tenure-track faculty and three research faculty members. “What a journey for the first nuclear engineering curriculum in the nation,” said Kostadin Ivanov, professor and department head.
Keith C. Bledsoe, Jeffrey A. Favorite, Tunc Aldemir
Nuclear Technology | Volume 176 | Number 1 | October 2011 | Pages 106-126
Radiation Transport and Protection | dx.doi.org/10.13182/NT176-106
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Determining the components of a radioactive source/shield system using the system's radiation signature, a type of inverse transport problem, is one of great importance in homeland security, material safeguards, and waste management. Here, the Levenberg-Marquardt (or simply "Marquardt") method, a standard gradient-based optimization technique, is applied to the inverse transport problems of interface location identification, shield material identification, source composition identification, and material mass density identification (both separately and combined) in multilayered radioactive source/shield systems. One-dimensional spherical problems using leakage measurements of neutron-induced gamma-ray lines and two-dimensional cylindrical problems using flux measurements of uncollided passive gamma-ray lines are considered. Gradients are calculated using an adjoint-based differentiation technique that is more efficient than difference formulas. The Marquardt method is iterative and directly estimates unknown interface locations, source isotope weight fractions, and material mass densities, while the unknown shield material is identified by estimating its macroscopic gamma-ray cross sections. Numerical test cases illustrate the utility of the Marquardt method using both simulated data that are perfectly consistent with the optimization process and realistic data simulated by Monte Carlo.