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Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
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Colin Judge: Testing structural materials in Idaho’s newest hot cell facility
Idaho National Laboratory’s newest facility—the Sample Preparation Laboratory (SPL)—sits across the road from the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF), which started operating in 1975. SPL will host the first new hot cells at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) in 50 years, giving INL researchers and partners new flexibility to test the structural properties of irradiated materials fresh from the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) or from a partner’s facility.
Materials meant to withstand extreme conditions in fission or fusion power plants must be tested under similar conditions and pushed past their breaking points so performance and limitations can be understood and improved. Once irradiated, materials samples can be cut down to size in SPL and packaged for testing in other facilities at INL or other national laboratories, commercial labs, or universities. But they can also be subjected to extreme thermal or corrosive conditions and mechanical testing right in SPL, explains Colin Judge, who, as INL’s division director for nuclear materials performance, oversees SPL and other facilities at the MFC.
SPL won’t go “hot” until January 2026, but Judge spoke with NN staff writer Susan Gallier about its capabilities as his team was moving instruments into the new facility.
Z. W. Lin
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 1 | October 2009 | Pages 128-131
Dose/Dose Rate | Special Issue on the 11th International Conference on Radiation Shielding and the 15th Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division (Part 1) / Radiation Protection | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A9112
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In space radiation calculations it is often useful to calculate the dose or dose equivalent in blood-forming organs (BFOs), the eye, or the skin. Sometimes, an equivalent sphere is used to represent the organ for a fast estimate of the organ dose. It has been found that the equivalent sphere model (ESM) can approximate organ dose or dose equivalent values in galactic cosmic-ray environments. In solar particle event (SPE) environments, the model works marginally for BFOs, but it does not work for the eye or the skin. Here, we study the improvement of the ESM. Motivated by the two-component thickness distributions of the eye and the skin, we use two spheres with proper weights to represent the eye or the skin, and this drastically improves the accuracy. For example, in SPE environments, the average error for the skin dose equivalent using two spheres to represent the skin is [approximately]8%, while the average error using a single sphere is [approximately]100%.