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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
S. Prasad, S. D. Clarke, S. A. Pozzi, E. W. Larsen
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 172 | Number 1 | September 2012 | Pages 78-86
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE11-60
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A response matrix method (RMM) is applied to Monte Carlo simulations to efficiently compute neutron pulse height distributions (PHDs) in organic scintillation detectors. The PHD calculations and their associated uncertainty are compared for a polyethylene-shielded and lead-shielded 252Cf source for three different techniques: fully analog MCNPX-PoliMi, the RMM, and the RMM with source biasing. The RMM with source biasing reduces computation time or improves the figure of merit on average by a factor of 600 for polyethylene shielding and a factor of 300 for lead shielding (when compared to the fully analog calculation). The simulated neutron PHDs show good agreement with the laboratory measurements, thereby validating the RMM.