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 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Jun 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2026
Nuclear Technology
July 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Launching into tomorrow: NRIC guides new era of research and deployment
In June 2025, the Department of Energy announced the Reactor Pilot Program, an authorization pathway that allowed reactor developers to partner with the DOE to get first-of-a-kind (FOAK) reactors built and tested. Soon after, the DOE rolled out a complementary Fuel Line Pilot Program, which aimed to fast-track fuel projects. In all, 20 projects were accepted into the new programs.
C. N. Kelber
Nuclear Technology | Volume 13 | Number 1 | January 1972 | Pages 95-98
Technical Paper | Technique | doi.org/10.13182/NT72-A31071
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The concept of a dual spectrum facility for the assay of reactor fuel is extended here to include the assay of thermal reactor fuel as well as LMFBR fuel, and the problems of neutron filter choice and moderator choice are examined. Finally, an estimate is made of the resistance of the concept to errors introduced by tampering with the plutonium distribution. The dual spectrum concept involves oscillating fuel against a standard in a hard spectrum in a dilute fast critical assembly, then softening the spectrum by introducing a moderator into the voids in the assembly, and oscillating the fuel inside various neutron absorbers or filters. The choice of moderator and of neutron filter is a set of design variables; the objective of this work is to determine that set of design variables which yields the lowest estimated bound on the error inherent in the fuel assay, and to extend these considerations to the assay of thermal reactor fuel. It is concluded that the filters hafnium, boron, and cadmium, together with water or graphite moderator, offer an optimal design set. The errors in the assay of fuel are, roughly, inversely proportional to the mass content of the fuel; the resistance to tampering is found to be high.