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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.
Kiyoshi Takeuchi, Shun-ichi Tanaka
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 87 | Number 4 | August 1984 | Pages 478-489
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE84-A18514
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Gamma-ray exposure buildup factors are calculated using a discrete ordinates direct integration code, PALLAS-PL, SP-Br, for water, concrete, iron, and lead, typifying materials of low, medium, and high atomic number. The radiation sources considered were both plane, at normal incidence, and at plane-isotropic. These data include the effects of secondary photon sources arising from Compton scattering, bremsstrahlung, and annihilation. Inclusion of a bremsstrahlung source influences the exposure buildup factors for high-energy photons in materials of high atomic number. The calculational accuracy is verified by comparing the PALLAS calculations with the results of experiments with both the energy spectrum and the attenuation dose transmitted through lead where the source is a plane isotropically incident 6.2-MeV gamma ray or a plane normally incident ∼8-MeV gamma ray. Comparisons are also made with other calculations of exposure buildup factors in water for a 0.5- and a 3.0-MeV plane normally incident source. The calculated buildup factors in each material are tabulated for incident energies of 0.1 to 15 MeV (except for lead where the lower energy is 0.4 MeV) and for penetration depths as great as 40 mfp.