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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
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.
In Sun Park, In Je Kang, Kyu-Sun Chung
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 77 | Number 6 | August 2021 | Pages 429-436
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2021.1929759
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Although plasma-facing components composed of tungsten are less likely to generate dust when compared to other materials, dust generation is still possible during severe transient phenomena in fusion devices. The generation of tungsten dusts was experimentally investigated by exposing tungsten targets to a transient heat flux factor (FHF) simulated by a high-energy pulsed laser so that the rate of dust generation would be analyzed. The rate of dust generation is observed to be increased linearly with respect to FHF: G [mg/min] = C (FEX – F0), where FEX is the experimental value of FHF, F0 is the threshold FHF, and C [mg∙m2∙s1/2/min∙MJ] = 0.0031 ± 0.0002. FHF indicates that the characteristics of dusts such as size and FHF are similar to those observed in several toroidal fusion devices. The threshold of FHF for dust generation was also observed as 41 MJ/m2∙ s1/2, which is similar to that of the international thermonuclear experimental reactor ITER (50 MJ/m2∙ s1/2).
