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
Jun 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
July 2025
Latest News
World Bank, IAEA partner to fund nuclear energy
The World Bank and the International Atomic Energy Agency signed an agreement last week to cooperate on the construction and financing of advanced nuclear projects in developing countries, marking the first partnership since the bank ended its ban on funding for nuclear energy projects.
Bryan Bednarz, Bin Han, X. George Xu
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 2 | November 2009 | Pages 270-273
Neutron Data | Special Issue on the 11th International Conference on Radiation Shielding and the 15th Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division (Part 2) / Radiation Biology and Medicine | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A9193
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
During radiation therapy treatments, neutron contamination can be a source of unwanted radiation dose to the patient and medical personnel. Accurate cross-section data is needed to characterize the neutron contamination in medical accelerators using Monte Carlo methods. In this study, a comparison of the photoneutron yields using the default LA150U and the Chinese Nuclear Data Center (CNDC) photonuclear cross sections was performed. Thick tungsten plates, each of 0.125-cm thickness (one-third radiation length), were directly irradiated by an electron beam in MCNPX. In order to match typical radiation therapy energy ranges, the energy distribution of the electron beam was modeled as a Gaussian distribution with a mean energy of 18.3 MeV and a 3% full-width at half-maximum. The photoneutron yield using the LA150U is consistently [approximately]12 to 17% higher than those from the CNDC data for each target thickness. The average photoneutron energy difference between the two cross-section libraries ranged from 3 to 42%. No major differences were seen between relative neutron fluences per solid angle for the two cross-section libraries. The discrepancies between the datasets provided above can be attributed to the oversimplification of using the default LA150U 184W cross section for all other naturally occurring isotopes of tungsten. Therefore, the lack of cross-section data in the LA150U library is a definite concern when using MCNPX to determine secondary neutron production in a medical accelerator room since a majority of contamination neutrons are produced in tungsten components.