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September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Latest News
The RAIN scale: A good intention that falls short
Radiation protection specialists agree that clear communication of radiation risks remains a vexing challenge that cannot be solved solely by finding new ways to convey technical information.
Earlier this year, an article in Nuclear News described a new radiation risk communication tool, known as the Radiation Index, or, RAIN (“Let it RAIN: A new approach to radiation communication,” NN, Jan. 2025, p. 36). The authors of the article created the RAIN scale to improve radiation risk communication to the general public who are not well-versed in important aspects of radiation exposures, including radiation dose quantities, units, and values; associated health consequences; and the benefits derived from radiation exposures.
Y. Liang
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 59 | Number 3 | April 2011 | Pages 586-601
Lecture | Fourth ITER International Summer School (IISS2010) | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A11699
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The next generation of fusion machines like ITER and DEMO will need a reliable method for controlling the periodic transient expulsion of a considerable amount of energy onto the plasma-facing components caused by instabilities at the plasma edge. The good plasma confinement in these tokamak devices will result in a steepened pressure profile at the plasma edge. When the pressure gradient exceeds a critical value, so-called edge-localized modes (ELMs) are destabilized. These modes feature a periodic fast collapse of the edge pressure, a sudden loss of the confinement, and a subsequent release of heat and particles onto plasma-facing components. The associated transient heat loads might cause excess erosion and lead to a strong reduction of the plasma-facing component lifetime. In this lecture, an overview of recent development of several ELM control methods for next-generation tokamaks, e.g., ITER is given. Some key physics issues related to the mechanism of ELM control are discussed.