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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Fusion Science and Technology
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.
A. A. Belokurov, L. G. Askinazi, V. K. Gusev, E. O. Kiselev, G. S. Kurskiev, A. V. Petrov, Yu. V. Petrov, A. M. Ponomarenko, S. Yu. Tolstyakov, A. Yu. Yashin
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 81 | Number 2 | February 2025 | Pages 109-117
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2024.2362530
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The intermediate mode between the ohmic, or low confinement (L-mode), and the increased confinement (H-mode) regimes, or the so called I-phase, which is characterized by the existence of zonal flows in the form of limit cycle oscillations (LCOs), was observed on the Globus-M tokamak. Depending on the LCO frequency, the I-phase resulted in either a transition to H-mode or back to L-mode. The possibility of L-I-H transition initiation induced by LCOs and the effect of LCO frequency were studied by means of numerical modeling of the density profile evolution, taking into account turbulence suppression by the inhomogeneous radial electric field. The modeling results show that lower LCO frequency could be a factor facilitating the L-H transition, whereas higher frequency LCOs are more likely to cause the backward transition to L-mode. The results are in qualitative agreement with the results of the studies of geodesic acoustic mode (GAM)–initiated L-H transition in the TUMAN-3M tokamak, where a lower GAM frequency was found to be beneficial for L-H transition initiation.