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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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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The RAIN scale: A good intention that falls short
Radiation protection specialists agree that clear communication of radiation risks remains a vexing challenge that cannot be solved solely by finding new ways to convey technical information.
Earlier this year, an article in Nuclear News described a new radiation risk communication tool, known as the Radiation Index, or, RAIN (“Let it RAIN: A new approach to radiation communication,” NN, Jan. 2025, p. 36). The authors of the article created the RAIN scale to improve radiation risk communication to the general public who are not well-versed in important aspects of radiation exposures, including radiation dose quantities, units, and values; associated health consequences; and the benefits derived from radiation exposures.
Piyush Sabharwall, Vivek Utgikar, Fred Gunnerson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 167 | Number 2 | August 2009 | Pages 325-332
Technical Note | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A8967
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Heat pipes and thermosyphons can be very effective heat transport devices for transferring the thermal energy of the Next Generation Nuclear Plant to a hydrogen production plant and/or other process heat applications. These devices operate nearly isothermally, transporting large amounts of thermal energy with little or no temperature drop. A dimensional analysis of the thermosyphon and the heat pipe is presented in this paper. Dimensional analysis is a valuable mathematical technique useful in research work for design and conducting model tests. This analysis yielded two terms - Er and EM - particular to the operation of these devices in addition to those commonly used in many heat transfer applications. The Er term relates the latent heat of vaporization to the pressure drop across the device, while the EM term relates the latent heat of vaporization to the capillary pressure. The significance of these two terms is discussed. The universal nature of these numbers should be useful in increasing the fundamental understanding of both the thermosyphon and the heat pipe.