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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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.
Awais Zahur, Muhammad Rizwan Ali, Deokjung Lee
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 12 | December 2023 | Pages 3175-3192
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2023.2189888
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A coupling framework named Multi-Physics CORE (MPCORE) is developed to analyze the multiphysics phenomenon in a nuclear reactor. MPCORE performs two-way coupling between two physics modules. A rod ejection accident (REA) is an important design-basis accident that results in an instantaneous power surge in the case of prompt criticality. Hence, this technical note studies the passive response of a nuclear reactor core in the case of a similar rapid reactivity insertion. Stand-alone calculations by neutronics, thermal-hydraulic (TH), or fuel performance (FP) modules use conservative options for other physics modules. Thus, multiphysics analysis provides a more realistic assessment of actual prospective damage. MPCORE employs an adaptive time-step feature to reduce execution time. Moreover, it performs in-memory transfer of data between different modules. This technical note evaluates the performance of the TH module with cross flow (subchannel) and without cross flow (one-dimensional). For the FP module, the effect of dynamic and static gap heat transfer coefficient models is also quantified. Hence, four combinations with these two TH and FP options are simulated. The following are the safety parameters compared for different models: departure from nucleate boiling ratio, linear power, fuel enthalpy, fuel centerline temperature, cladding outer surface temperature, and coolant temperature.