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The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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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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Strontium: Supply-and-demand success for the DOE’s Isotope Program
The Department of Energy’s Isotope Program (DOE IP) announced last week that it would end its “active standby” capability for strontium-82 production about two decades after beginning production of the isotope for cardiac diagnostic imaging. The DOE IP is celebrating commercialization of the Sr-82 supply chain as “a success story for both industry and the DOE IP.” Now that the Sr-82 market is commercially viable, the DOE IP and its National Isotope Development Center can “reassign those dedicated radioisotope production capacities to other mission needs”—including Sr-89.
Michael Nishimura, Yu Liu, Liqian Li, Karen Colins
Nuclear Technology | Volume 195 | Number 2 | August 2016 | Pages 169-180
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NT15-159
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
With the advancement of computer and communication technologies, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are increasingly used in nuclear and space applications, both of which may require operation in a high-intensity radiation environment. Gamma rays’ damaging mechanisms in semiconductor devices are described as, and specifically linked to, semiconductor property changes in detectors, transistors, and integrated circuits. Radiation damage is cumulative and can result in the premature failure of WSN nodes. Failed WSN nodes decrease the quality of service of the entire WSN and then delay immediate response to severe accidents. This paper focuses on evaluating the performance of WSN routing protocols in a gamma-ray radiation environment. The probability density function of a Weibull distribution was used to model failures of individual nodes in simulated WSNs. The distribution parameters are based on results of radiation damage tests performed on semiconductor devices in the Gamma-220 facility (60Co source) at the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories. Simulation of the routing protocols [LEACH (Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy), LEACH-C (LEACH-Centralized), Stat-Clus (Static Clustering), MTE (Minimum Transmission Energy), and PEGASIS (Power-Efficient Gathering in Sensor Information Systems)] through NS2 (Network Simulator 2) and the resulting performance analyses could provide useful design insights and considerations for nuclear and space applications. The performance of WSN routing protocols is evaluated for the first time in a gamma-ray radiation environment for nuclear and space applications.