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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!
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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.
Theresa Cutler, Kelsey Amundson, Jesson Hutchinson, Nick Thompson
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 7 | July 2023 | Pages 1331-1355
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2159293
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The International Handbook of Evaluated Criticality Safety Benchmark Experiments includes thousands of criticality safety benchmark configurations that have been collected since the early 1990s. Their quality and uncertainty analysis have greatly expanded over the years, as computer codes have also expanded and accelerated. Along with the increase in effort required for benchmarks today, the cost of performing experiments has also gone up. This paper evaluates plutonium fast metal and highly enriched uranium fast metal experiments for their major uncertainty contributions and identifies where to focus efforts in future experiment design.