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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.
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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.”
Amol Patil, Shoaib Usman
Nuclear Technology | Volume 165 | Number 2 | February 2009 | Pages 249-256
Technical Paper | Radiation Measurements and Instrumentation | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A4090
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper describes the finding of an experimental study to measure the detector paralysis factor and the use of this parameter in conjunction with detector dead time to better model detector dead-time response. The idealized one-parameter models, the paralyzable and nonparalyzable models, are inadequate to properly model the dead-time response of any real detector system. To address this deficiency, a more realistic two-parameter model is proposed that incorporates the paralysis factor of the detector in addition to the dead time. The revised two-parameter-based model is an extension of Lee and Gardner's two-dead-time model. A simple scheme is proposed to deduce these parameters from the recorded data based on the rise and drop of count rates from a decaying source. Measurements were made using 56Mn and 52V. The data collected in this study show that a high-purity germanium (HPGe) detector has a paralysis factor of ~50 to 77% and a dead time of 6 to 10 s. Using the data collected by Lee and Gardner, the paralysis factor for a Geiger-Mueller (GM) counter is estimated to be ~5%. These results are consistent with the approximating assumption that GM counters are nonparalyzing and HPGe detectors are paralyzing.