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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.
W. A. Coleman, R. E. Maerker, F. J. Muckenthaler, and P. N. Stevens
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 27 | Number 2 | February 1967 | Pages 411-422
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE67-A18280
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Extensive Monte Carlo calculations were performed to determine the distribution in energy and angle of neutrons reflected from steel-reinforced concrete for five incident directions and ten incident energy groups extending from 0.5 eV to 200 keV. The reflected distributions were determined in terms of a doubly differential albedo for each of 54 emergent directions for each energy group lying between and including the incident group and the tenth group (0.5 to 1.8 eV). The standard deviation of the doubly differential albedo averaged around ten percent. The angular slowing down density of the incident epicadmium neutrons within the slab was computed at 0.5 eV and was used as the source distribution for a Monte Carlo single-velocity diffusion calculation using 0.025-eV cross sections. From the diffusion calculation, the differential angular albedos of the reflected subcadmium neutrons and the depth distributions of captures occurring at subcadmium energies were obtained. Measurements of the differential angular albedo of emergent subcadmium neutrons due to a measured spectrum of incident monodi-rectional beams of epicadmium neutrons were performed at the ORNL Tower Shielding Facility in an experiment geometrically identical to that previously reported for incident subcadmium beams. Of the 35 common points of calculation and measurement, the two largest discrepancies are 23 and 36%; the remaining 33 comparisons produced a root-mean-square deviation of 4.5%.