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Last of Cs-137 irradiators removed from South Carolina
The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration announced that it has successfully removed all cesium-137 irradiators from South Carolina, as the agency seeks to eliminate radiological threats and protect communities.
Cs-137 sources are commonly used to irradiate cellular blood cells prior to transfusion to prevent graft-versus-host disease, where the donated cells view the recipient’s cells as an unfamiliar threat. If stolen from a less-secure facility, however, the cesium inside the irradiators could be used to create a radiological dispersal device, commonly referred to as a dirty bomb.
Jeffrey A. Favorite
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 177 | Number 3 | July 2014 | Pages 361-366
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE13-66
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Particle fluxes on surfaces are difficult to calculate with Monte Carlo methods because the score requires a division by the surface-crossing angle cosine, and grazing angles lead to inaccuracies. The traditional method for dealing with this problem was recently extended by recognizing the assumptions that were implicit in its derivation. More recently, a kernel density estimator (KDE) has been proposed to replace the traditional method. In this technical note, example problems from the KDE development are analyzed, and the failure of the traditional method is shown to be due to the invalidity of one of the implicit assumptions, as previously predicted, and the extended theory is used to correct the traditional method.