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Division Spotlight
Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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
Can hydrogen be the transportation fuel in an otherwise nuclear economy?
Let’s face it: The global economy should be powered primarily by nuclear power. And it probably will by the end of this century, with a still-significant assist from renewables and hydro. Once nuclear systems are dominant, the costs come down to where gas is now; and when carbon emissions are reduced to a small portion of their present state, it will become obvious that most other sources are only good in niche settings. I mean, why use small modular reactors to load-follow when they can just produce that power instead of buffering it?
John D. Bess
Nuclear Technology | Volume 177 | Number 1 | January 2012 | Pages 29-35
Technical Paper | Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-A13325
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A series of 15 critical experiments performed at the Rocky Flats Critical Mass Laboratory in the late 1960s was evaluated and then determined to represent acceptable benchmark experiments for the validation of calculational methods. This series of experiments was part of a larger set of experiments performed to evaluate operational safety margins at the Rocky Flats Plant. The experiments consisted of bare plutonium metal hemishells reflected by steel hemishells of increasing thickness and motor oil. The hemishell assembly was suspended within dual aluminum tanks. Criticality was achieved by pumping oil into the tanks such that effectively infinite reflection was achieved in all directions except directly above the assembly; then the critical oil height was recorded. The results of these experiments had been initially ignored because early computational methods had been inadequate to analyze partially reflected configurations. The dominant uncertainties include the uncertainty in the average plutonium density and the composition of materials in the gaps between the plutonium hemishells. Simple and detailed benchmark models were developed. Eigenvalue calculations using MCNP5 and ENDF/B-VII.0 were within 2 of the benchmark values. This benchmark evaluation has been added to the International Handbook of Evaluated Criticality Safety Benchmark Experiments.