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Cs-137 sealed source lost in Western Australia
A rendering of the sealed source capsule’s appearance. (Image: DFES)
Authorities are searching 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) of Australia’s Great Northern Highway, between Perth and the remote town of Newman, for a lost sealed-source capsule containing cesium-137. The source was part of a density gauge used by mining company Rio Tinto at its mining operations in Western Australia.
The Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) of Western Australia reported that the density gauge containing a 6-mm-diameter (0.24-inch-diameter) by 8-mm-height (0.31-inch-height) source capsule was sent by flatbed truck to Perth for repair, leaving Rio Tinto’s Gudai-Darri mine site in Western Australia on January 12 and arriving in Perth on January 16. The package containing the gauge, however, was not inspected until January 25.
Upon opening the package, it was found that the gauge was broken apart with one of four mounting bolts missing. The source itself and all screws on the gauge were also missing. It is assumed that vibrations from the truck broke the gauge apart and allowed the screws and capsule to fall through the bolt hole and away from the truck. DFES said they were notified of the loss on the evening of January 25.
L. M. Reusch, P. Franz, D. J. Den Hartog, J. A. Goetz, M. D. Nornberg, P. VanMeter
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 74 | Number 1 | July-August 2018 | Pages 167-176
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1404340
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Soft–X-ray (SXR) brightness measurements contain information on a number of physics parameters in fusion plasmas; however, it is nearly impossible to extract the information without modeling. A validated forward model is therefore necessary for the accurate interpretation of SXR measurements and will be critical in the burning plasma era, where medium- and high-Z impurities are ever present. The Atomic Data and Analysis Structure (ADAS) database is a powerful interpretive tool that is extensively used to model and predict atomic spectra, level populations, and ionization balance for fusion plasmas. These predictions are in good agreement with experimental measurements. However, continuum radiation in the X-ray range, while also modeled in ADAS, has not been rigorously verified or tested against experimental data. We therefore performed a systematic comparison of ADAS to a simplified model called PFM. PFM only calculates continuum radiation but shows good agreement with experimental data when only continuum radiation is present. ADAS and the simplified model agree to within 1% to 2% indicating that ADAS is calculating continuum radiation correctly. We have also begun a validation of SXR brightness calculations from ADAS. The SXR brightness measurements modeled by ADAS agree well with experimental measurements from an extreme where the signal is dominated by line radiation continuously through another extreme where the signal is dominated by continuum emission. While this validation work is preliminary, it strongly suggests that ADAS accurately models the physics that lead to SXR radiation.