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Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Latest News
Take steps on SNF and HLW disposal
Matt Bowen
With a new administration and Congress, it is time once again to ponder what will happen—if anything—on U.S. spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste management policy over the next few years. One element of the forthcoming discussion seems clear: The executive and legislative branches are eager to talk about recycling commercial SNF. Whatever the merits of doing so, it does not obviate the need for one or more facilities for disposal of remaining long-lived radionuclides. For that reason, making progress on U.S. disposal capabilities remains urgent, lest the associated radionuclide inventories simply be left for future generations to deal with.
In March, Rick Perry, who was secretary of energy during President Trump’s first administration, observed that during his tenure at the Department of Energy it became clear to him that any plan to move SNF “required some practical consent of the receiving state and local community.”1
M. B. Chadwick, L. J. Cox, P. G. Young, A.S. Meigooni
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 123 | Number 1 | May 1996 | Pages 17-37
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE96-A24210
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We present an evaluation of the interaction of neutrons with energies between 20 and 100 MeV with carbon nuclei. Our aim is to accurately represent integrated cross sections, inclusive emission spectra, and kerma factors, in a data library for use in radiation transport simulations offast neutron radiotherapy. We apply the Feshbach-Kerman-Koonin-GNASH nuclear model code, which includes Hauser-Feshbach, pre-equilibrium, and direct reaction mechanisms, and use experimental measurements to optimize the calculations. We determine total, elastic, and nonelastic cross sections; angle-energy-correlated emission spectra for light ejectiles with A ≤ 4 and gamma rays; and average energy depositions. Coupled-channel optical model calculations describe the total, elastic, and nonelastic cross sections well. Our results for charged-particle emission spectra agree fairly well with University of California-Davis as well as new Los Alamos National Laboratory and Louvain-la-Neuve measurements. We compare our results with the recent ENDF/B-VI evaluation and argue that some of the exclusive channels between 20 and 32 MeV should be modified. We also compare kerma factors derived from our evaluated cross sections with the measurements, providing an integral benchmark for our work. The evaluated data libraries are available as electronic files.
