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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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Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
G. D. Bouchey, B. V. Koen, C. S. Beightler
Nuclear Technology | Volume 12 | Number 1 | September 1971 | Pages 18-25
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle | doi.org/10.13182/NT71-A15893
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The dynamic programming algorithm is used to determine the optimal allocation of effort (measured in dollars or other appropriate units) to minimize the variance on the measurement of Material Unaccounted For (MUF) in a nuclear materials safeguards system. A multistage model of a hypothetical safeguards sampling system is formulated and optimized. The dynamic programming approach for optimization of a safeguards system allows more exact treatment of the model than is possible with classical optimization techniques and can easily be extended to handle large problems of the type that might be encountered in a real-world safeguards sampling system.
