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.
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
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2025
Latest News
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
Kiyoshi Takeuchi, Nobuo Sasamoto
Nuclear Technology | Volume 62 | Number 2 | August 1983 | Pages 207-221
Technical Paper | Analyse | doi.org/10.13182/NT83-A33218
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
To examine the effect of modeling of a pres-surized water reactor (PWR) on predicting neutron field at the beltline of its pressure vessel (PV), neutron transport calculations were performed for various models of a 1000-MW( electric) class PWR in three different geometries-(R,θ), (R,Z), and a combination of (X,Y,Z) and (R,θ). A three-dimen-sional calculation with PALLAS-XYZ is used as a standard for the other two-dimensional (R,θ) and (R,Z) calculations made with PALLAS-2DRT and -2DCY. The source normalization essential for the (R,θ) calculation is reasonably made by dividing the total source neutrons by an effective core length, which provides calculated results in fair agreement with those calculated with a standard model for both radial attenuation and azimuthal variation of the integral fluxes above 1.0 and 0.1 MeV and also of displacements per atom (dpa). The (R,Z) calculations made in two different models were reviewed to find which model is more reasonable in evaluating neutron integral fluxes and dpa in a pressure vessel without underestimation. The effect of neglect of the axial leakage in (R,θ) transport calculations on neutron fluxes in a PV at the beltline region indicates little effect up to the distance before the vessel outer surface in contrast with an appreciable effect outside it. The azimuthal peaking is conspicuous and a factor of ∼2.7 at 40 deg compared with the results at 0 deg in both integral fluxes above 1.0 and 0.1 MeV and dpa for the PWR. The peaking values at the PV inner surface are 3.8 X 1010 and 7.4 X 1010 n/cm2.S for integral fluxes above 1.0 and 0.1 MeV, respectively, and 5.4 X 10−11 dpa/s. The analysis of a PC A 8/7 configuration indicates accuracy of within 30% and the analysis of Arkansas Nuclear One PWR plant indicates accuracy of the order of 20% for integral fluxes above 1.0 and 0.5 MeV at one measuring position in the cavity behind its PV, although marked discrepancies within a factor of 2 are observed at several energies in a neutron energy spectrum at the same position. The integral flux above 1 MeV is 1.01 X 1010 n/cm2. s at 12.5 deg, a peak azimuthal position of the inner surface of the PV; however, the azimuthal peaking is rather small (within 10%) compared with 9.29 X 109 n/cm2 .s at 0 deg.
