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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.
Matthias Frankl, Rafael Macián-Juan
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 183 | Number 1 | May 2016 | Pages 135-142
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE15-47
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In radiation transport simulations, photonuclear processes still represent a rather new feature and are not as well established as neutron, electron, or other photon interactions. This study provides a benchmark for the photoneutron yields in C, Al, Cu, Ta, Pb, and U targets using the most current photonuclear cross-section library ENDF7U and the transport code MCNPX, v. 2.7. The isotopic material descriptions of C and Cu could be improved as more isotopes are available with the new library. The results were compared to experimental data provided by Barber and George [Phys. Rev., 116, 1551 (1959)]. In general, a good agreement can be observed although there seems to be a systematic underestimation in the calculated neutron yields.