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Meeting Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
July 2025
Latest News
The U.S. Million Person Study of Low-Dose-Rate Health Effects
There is a critical knowledge gap regarding the health consequences of exposure to radiation received gradually over time. While there is a plethora of studies on the risks of adverse outcomes from both acute and high-dose exposures, including the landmark study of atomic bomb survivors, these are not characteristic of the chronic exposure to low-dose radiation encountered in occupational and public settings. In addition, smaller cohorts have limited numbers leading to reduced statistical power.
S. Reyes, J. F. Latkowski, J. Gomez del Rio, J. Sanz
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 39 | Number 2 | March 2001 | Pages 946-950
Safety and Environment | doi.org/10.13182/FST01-A11963362
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The present work continues our effort to perform an integrated safety analysis for the HYLIFE-II inertial fusion energy (IFE) power plant design. Recently we developed a base case for a severe accident scenario in order to calculate accident doses for HYLIFE-II. It consisted of a total loss of coolant accident (LOCA) in which all the liquid flibe (Li2BeF4) was lost at the beginning of the transient. Results showed that the off-site dose was below the limit given by the DOE Fusion Safety Standards for public protection in case of accident, and that this dose was dominated by the tritium released during the accident.
In order to further advance a complete safety analysis for HYLIFE-II, a range of other accident scenarios must be considered. In this work, we introduce a new version of the MELCOR thermal-hydraulics code recently developed by the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) that uses flibe as the working fluid. We have focused on a loss of flow accident (LOFA), with simultaneous failure of the blanket structure and the beam tubes that connect the chamber with the outside of the confinement building. This constitutes the bypass needed to communicate the target chamber with the environment. Once the release fractions of the various radioactivity sources are known, we calculate off-site doses under different conditions as a consequence of the accident.
