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Division Spotlight
Aerospace Nuclear Science & Technology
Organized to promote the advancement of knowledge in the use of nuclear science and technologies in the aerospace application. Specialized nuclear-based technologies and applications are needed to advance the state-of-the-art in aerospace design, engineering and operations to explore planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond, plus enhance the safety of air travel, especially high speed air travel. Areas of interest will include but are not limited to the creation of nuclear-based power and propulsion systems, multifunctional materials to protect humans and electronic components from atmospheric, space, and nuclear power system radiation, human factor strategies for the safety and reliable operation of nuclear power and propulsion plants by non-specialized personnel and more.
Meeting Spotlight
Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
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
ARPA-E announces $40 million to develop transmutation technologies for UNF
The Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) announced $40 million in funding to develop cutting-edge technologies to enable the transmutation of used nuclear fuel into less-radioactive substances. According to ARPA-E, the new initiative addresses one of the agency’s core goals as outlined by Congress: to provide transformative solutions to improve the management, cleanup, and disposal of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel.
Wouter C. de Wet, Lawrence W. Townsend, X. George Xu, Whitney J. Smith
Nuclear Technology | Volume 192 | Number 3 | December 2015 | Pages 308-313
Technical Note | Radiation Biology | doi.org/10.13182/NT15-21
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
One of the many significant challenges mankind faces as we look to expand our footprint in outer space is the hostile space radiation environment. Not unlike many other mission parameters, the doses imparted to astronauts from extraterrestrial radiation could potentially be a limiting factor when considering the longevity of any manned mission. Thus, a detailed knowledge of dose and dose distribution with regard to the tissue-dependent International Commission on Radiological Protection limits would be beneficial to ensure crew safety.
In this work, the Standalone Package for Enhanced Estimation of Dose Distribution (SPEEDD) is developed in order to provide a method of calculating an accurate three-dimensional dose distribution for a space crew. The current version presents a prototype of the software package. The three sources considered when operating in space are solar particle events, galactic cosmic radiation, and trapped radiation belts. In this technical note, trapped radiation will not be discussed in great detail. SPEEDD combines high-fidelity human phantoms with depth-dose tables in order to rapidly calculate whole-body dose as well as individual organ doses. The anatomical phantoms used in SPEEDD are the RPI Adult Male and the RPI Adult Female. They were developed by the Rensselaer Radiation Measurement & Dosimetry Group and are cubically voxelized with a resolution of 2.7 and 2.5 mm, respectively. Generated using the High Energy Transport Code–Human Exploration and Development in Space (HETC-HEDS) Monte Carlo radiation transport code, the depth-dose tables consist of all ions from hydrogen to iron characterized at 18 energy bins ranging from 20 AMeV to 3 AGeV. SPEEDD was written in the Python™ scripting language and is designed to be easily installed or added to larger software packages.