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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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Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
Al-Amin Ahmed Simon, Karishmae Kadrager, Baharceh Badamchi, Harish Subbaraman, Maria Mitkova (Boise State Univ)
Proceedings | Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control, and Human-Machine Interface Technolgies (NPIC&HMIT 2019) | Orlando, FL, February 9-14, 2019 | Pages 39-48
Temperature sensing is an integral part of any nuclear reactor facilities. However, high radiation and temperature degrade the sensing materials which in turn makes the sensors less reliable. In this paper, chalcogenide glasses are proposed as temperature sensing materials for reactor facilities. Chalcogenide glasses go through amorphous to crystalline phase transformation when heated up to their crystallization temperature. This phase transition changes both the electrical and optical properties of the chalcogenide glasses. They are amorphous in nature and radiation hard due to their specific electronic structure and high defect density. Difference in reflected power at 1310 nm and 1550 nm wavelengths as a function of temperature, from chalcogenide glass-silica interface can be utilized to measure temperature and this effect is applied in the device presented in this paper. A review of the radiation hardness and a study of thermally induced change in optical properties of Ge-containing chalcogenide glasses along with a device architecture are presented as a method for temperature monitoring in nuclear facilities.