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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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.
Mohamed Tahar Sissaoui, Guy Marleau, Daniel Rozon
Nuclear Technology | Volume 125 | Number 2 | February 1999 | Pages 197-212
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT99-A2942
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new model has been developed to evaluate the variation of few-group cross sections with local parameters and the history of the reactor. This model allows us to generate a coherent set of nuclear cross sections for a CANDU cell. The history dependence of the nuclide concentrations is taken into account by creating a pseudo-isotope, which includes actinides whose concentrations are strongly affected by local parameter history. Simple physical considerations lead us to determine the law of variation of the cross sections as a function of these parameters. They permit the computation of the cross sections for each state of the reactor core, using a unique library for each type of cell, which contains the nuclear cross sections computed at nominal conditions and feedback coefficients. To validate the feedback model, several operational situations were tested, and the results are compared to those given by a transport calculation using the DRAGON cell code.