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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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No impact from Savannah River radioactive wasps
The news is abuzz with recent news stories about four radioactive wasp nests found at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The site has been undergoing cleanup operations since the 1990s related to the production of plutonium and tritium for defense purposes during the Cold War. Cleanup activities are expected to continue into the 2060s.
R. E. Maerker, B. L. Broadhead, B. A. Worley, M. L. Williams, J. J. Wagschal
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 93 | Number 2 | June 1986 | Pages 137-170
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE86-A17665
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The development and demonstration of a new unfolding procedure involving pressure vessel surveillance dosimetry in pressurized water reactors are described. The complete methodology is contained in the LEPRICON code system, and provides techniques for calculating pressure vessel fluences and then adjusting them, with reduced uncertainties, on the basis of surveillance dosimetry measurements and a benchmark data base. An application of these techniques to an existing on-line commercial reactor is presented. Results indicate that the best estimate of the pressure vessel lifetime based on a limiting fluence above 1 MeV of 2 × 1019 n/cm2 is ∼129 ± 11 effective full-power years, whereas the unadjusted estimate has an uncertainty twice as large.