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NC State celebrates 70 years of nuclear engineering education
An early picture of the research reactor building on the North Carolina State University campus. The Department of Nuclear Engineering is celebrating the 70th anniversary of its nuclear engineering curriculum in 2020–2021. Photo: North Carolina State University
The Department of Nuclear Engineering at North Carolina State University has spent the 2020–2021 academic year celebrating the 70th anniversary of its becoming the first U.S. university to establish a nuclear engineering curriculum. It started in 1950, when Clifford Beck, then of Oak Ridge, Tenn., obtained support from NC State’s dean of engineering, Harold Lampe, to build the nation’s first university nuclear reactor and, in conjunction, establish an educational curriculum dedicated to nuclear engineering.
The department, host to the 2021 ANS Virtual Student Conference, scheduled for April 8–10, now features 23 tenure/tenure-track faculty and three research faculty members. “What a journey for the first nuclear engineering curriculum in the nation,” said Kostadin Ivanov, professor and department head.
R. Scott Willms, David Dogruel, Richard Myers, Richard Farrell
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 48 | Number 1 | July-August 2005 | Pages 409-412
Technical Paper | Tritium Science and Technology - Tritium Measurement, Monitoring, and Accountancy | dx.doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A955
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Traditionally the amount of tritium on a surface is determined by swiping the surface with a material such as filter paper and counting the removed tritium by scintillation. While effective, this method can be time consuming, can alter the surface, only measures removable tritium and produces radioactive waste. For a given application each of these considerations may or may not be a disadvantage. A solid state monitor, on the other hand, has the potential to provide rapid analysis, not alter the surface, measure all tritium on a surface and produce little or not radioactive waste. This allure has promoted open wall ion chamber and PIN diode-based tritium surface monitor development, and these techniques have enjoyed certain success. Recently the first tests were performed with an avalanche photodiode (APD) for surface tritium measurement. While quite similar in concept to PIN diode based measurements, side-by-side testing showed that the APD provided substantially better counting efficiency. Considerations included count rate, background, sensitivity, stability and effect of ambient light. Of particular importance in the US, the APD was able to measure concentrations down to the "free release" limit, i.e., the concentration below which items can be removed from radiological control areas.