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
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Jul 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
July 2025
Latest News
DOE issues new NEPA rule and procedures—and accelerates DOME reactor testing
Meeting a deadline set in President Trump’s May 23 executive order “Reforming Nuclear Reactor Testing at the Department of Energy,” the DOE on June 30 updated information on its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) rulemaking and implementation procedures and published on its website an interim final rule that rescinds existing regulations alongside new implementing procedures.
Charles O. Slater, Hamilton T. Hunter
Nuclear Technology | Volume 129 | Number 2 | February 2000 | Pages 201-217
Technical Paper | Radiation Protection | doi.org/10.13182/NT00-A3057
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Newly produced multigroup cross-section libraries require detailed testing to ensure that they are suitable for the applications intended. This requires that the libraries be tested against approved experimental benchmarks and/or well-posed calculational benchmarks. Following this tradition, the recently produced fine-group VITAMIN-B6 library and its derivative BUGLE-96 broad-group library have been tested against calculational and experimental benchmarks that are sensitive to neutrons with energies in the moderate-energy range (10.0 to 20.0 MeV). Iron is prominent in each benchmark as it is in many shielding configurations, and iron cross-section data have posed significant problems in many shielding designs. These benchmarks provide stringent tests for the iron cross sections. Calculated results obtained using the new libraries were compared to measured results or results from other calculations. In some cases, results were in good agreement. In other cases, there were significant discrepancies between results due to deficient measurements in a few comparisons and to method or data deficiencies in other comparisons. It is concluded that there is still need for further measurements and evaluations of the iron cross-section data in the energy region below 6.0 MeV. While fluxes in the moderate-energy range and the associated downscatter sources may be calculated adequately, the inadequate low-energy cross sections can lead to rather large discrepancies in integral quantities such as dose or heating.