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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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.
Nasir M. Mirza, Sikander M. Mirza, N. Ahmad
Nuclear Technology | Volume 96 | Number 3 | December 1991 | Pages 237-247
Technical Paper | Fission Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT91-A34586
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A computer code using the multigroup diffusion theory based LEOPARD and ODMUG programs has been developed to calculate the activity in the coolant leaving the core of a pool-type research reactor. Using this code, the dose rates at various locations along the coolant path with varying coolant flow rate and reactor power perturbations are determined. A flow rate decrease from 1000 to 145 m3/h is considered. The results indicate that a flow rate decrease leads to an increase in the coolant outlet temperature, which affects the neutron group constants and hence the group fluxes. The activity in the coolant leaving the core increases with flow rate decrease. However, at the inlet of the holdup tank, the total dose rate first increases, then passes through a maximum at ∼500 m3/h, and finally decreases with flow rate decrease. The activity at the outlet of the holdup tank is mainly due to 24Na and 56Mn, and it increases by ∼2% when the flow rate decreases from 1000 to 145 m3/h. In an accidental power rise at constant flow rate, the activity in the coolant increases, and the dose rates at all the points along the coolant path show a slight nonlinear rise as the reactor power density increases.