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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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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ITA to work with IAEA on advance geologic repository knowledge
The International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association (ITA), a nongovernmental organization made up of 81 member states working to advance the safe, beneficial use of subsurface spaces, is working with the International Atomic Energy Agency to support the advancement of geologic disposal facilities for high-level radioactive waste.
Mathew W. Swinney, Douglas E. Peplow, Bruce W. Patton, Andrew D. Nicholson, Daniel E. Archer, Michael J. Willis
Nuclear Technology | Volume 203 | Number 3 | September 2018 | Pages 325-335
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1458558
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The detection of radioactive sources in an urban setting is greatly complicated by natural background radiation, which emanates from various materials including roadways, sidewalks, soil, and building exteriors. The method presented and demonstrated here represents an effort to characterize the concentration of naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) in these types of materials. The location surveyed in this work was the Fort Indiantown Gap Combined Arms Collective Training Facility in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania. Over 70 measurements with a high-purity germanium detector were performed to ascertain the NORM concentrations present in the soil, asphalt, gravel, concrete, and walls found throughout the site. Monte Carlo radiation transport calculations were used to obtain detector responses for these various geometries and materials to convert these measurements into NORM concentration estimates. Finally, synthetic spectra were simulated using the predicted source terms and compared to actual measurements, showing acceptable agreement.