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
Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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
May 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Sam Altman steps down as Oklo board chair
Advanced nuclear company Oklo Inc. has new leadership for its board of directors as billionaire Sam Altman is stepping down from the position he has held since 2015. The move is meant to open new partnership opportunities with OpenAI, where Altman is CEO, and other artificial intelligence companies.
Codey Olson, Jesse Snow, Meng-Jen (Vince) Wang, Glenn Sjoden, Edward Cazalas
Nuclear Technology | Volume 209 | Number 9 | September 2023 | Pages 1241-1251
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2023.2203291
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Here we perform the matching of neutron counts in two detector gasses through capture reactions and radiation transport–optimized moderating materials. One of our detectors uses helium-3 (3He) gas and has been widely used as a neutron detection material in proportional detector tube designs. This study examines boron trifluoride (BF3) as a potential gas for neutron detection in place of 3He based on a previously studied “spectrally matched” design derived from deterministic adjoint analyses that closely mimic the spectral response of 3He. The integrated spectral response of each tube, i.e., the count rate, is calculated and measured at various distances from an isotropic neutron source where similar “total sources” are achieved in either detection system. Our results show the integrated spectral response of a dual BF3 tube detector was within 10% of a single 3He tube when exposed to a similar source. GEANT4 Monte Carlo simulations were used to calculate the total source for each detector and showed count rates within 5% of those produced by MCNP, providing a strong confidence in its behavior in the thermal energy regime. We provide results in this study to partially validate the replacement based on the spectrally matched design, which will lead to further validation through the utilization of multiple neutron spectra via simulated and experimental studies.