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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.
William B. Terney, Henri Fenech
Nuclear Technology | Volume 3 | Number 1 | January 1967 | Pages 46-52
Technical Paper and Note | doi.org/10.13182/NT67-A27824
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The optimum gradient technique is reviewed and then used to optimize a shipboard reactor shield system consisting of a water-lead primary and a concrete-lead-polyethylene secondary shield. The shield is optimized to the point where the cost of further reductions in weight exceeds the worth (K) of these reductions to the ship, and subject to five dose point constraints. Plots of eight thicknesses as a function of K are given. For high K values (essentially weight optimization) the concrete thicknesses are zero. As K decreases and cost becomes more and more important in comparison to the weight, concrete is added, and the more expensive lead and polyethylene are subtracted.
