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Division Spotlight
Reactor Physics
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.
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
Vogtle-3 shuts down for valve issue
One of the new Vogtle units in Georgia was shut down unexpectedly on Monday last week for a valve issue that has since been investigated and repaired. According to multiple local news outlets, Georgia Power reported on July 17 that Unit 3 was back in service.
Southern Company spokesperson Jacob Hawkins confirmed that Vogtle-3 went off line at 9:25 p.m. local time on July 8 “due to lowering water levels in the steam generators caused by a valve issue on one of the three main feedwater pumps.”
Bin Liu, Xuefeng Lv, Shiliang Zhou, Ying Wu
Nuclear Technology | Volume 165 | Number 1 | January 2009 | Pages 124-131
Technical Note | Radiation Measurements and Instrumentation | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A4065
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Elemental analysis of neutron-induced gamma-ray spectra is a significant technology in the detection of chemical agents, explosives, etc. The hard part of this problem is the very complicated and uncertain background signals of the gamma-ray spectra. Also, the background signals are always changing as the searched objects change, thus further complicating the gamma-ray spectra analysis process. We can define a typical or average background spectrum if the variation of background spectrum is not too large, then we use this background spectrum to identify a gamma-ray signal.We tested both the direct summation approach and the Gaussian fitting approach in our computer algorithms. We found these two different approaches have individual advantages and disadvantages when they are applied in calculations of the signal significance level. In the end, we combined the direct summation approach with the Gaussian fitting approach in our computer algorithms in the actual calculations of the signal significance level.Based on our previous preliminary MCNP simulations results, we used phosphorus powder to simulate the chemical agent sarin and used our automated computer algorithms to calculate the single-line and multiple-line signal significance levels. Presented in this paper are some results in which we used our experimental data to test our average background spectrum and our computer algorithms. Our calculated results show the average background spectra that we defined are appropriate for the elemental analysis in searching for the chemical agent, and our computer algorithms, in which we combined the direct summation approach with the Gaussian fitting approach, function well. From a multiple-line analysis, our calculated results show that in the real application of this neutron-induced gamma-ray detection technique the detection time can be reduced to 15 s or less for detecting small quantities of chemical agents.