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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
R. Wayne Houston
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 4 | Number 2 | August 1958 | Pages 227-238
doi.org/10.13182/NSE58-A15364
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
For samples exposed in high neutron flux regions of reactors the contribution to the total dosage due to the recoils from elastically scattered fast neutrons may be significant. The calculation of this contribution is considered here. Three methods are presented, each differing in the manner in which the details of the energy distribution of fast neutrons are treated. In the first, the neutron flux per unit energy interval is assumed to be of the asymptotic or 1/E form up to fission energies. In the second and third, a separate computation is made for the uncollided neutrons reaching the sample. The remaining contribution due to once-scattered neutrons is treated as in the first method, but alternate forms for the source spectrum of once-scattered neutrons are considered. Use of the equations requires only a knowledge of the thermal neutron flux in the vicinity of the sample. Assumptions and limitations are discussed. Numerical results are presented for comparison of the effects in light water, heavy water, and graphite moderated reactors in the irradiation of a hydrocarbon (cyclohexane) sample.