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Conference Spotlight
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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Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
Michael Y. Hua, Braden Goddard, Cody Lloyd, Evan C. Leppink, Sara A. Abraham, Jordan D. Noey, Shaun D. Clarke, Sara A. Pozzi
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 194 | Number 2 | February 2020 | Pages 154-162
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2019.1654329
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In this work, an epithermal neutron multiplicity counter (ENMC) and an organic scintillator multiplicity counter (OSMC) are compared in the assay of 237Np, a potentially weapons-usable isotope, using active neutron multiplicity counting. In active neutron multiplicity counting, the neutron doubles and triples multiplicity rates are used to analytically calculate sample mass. To distinguish the masses of two different samples, the measured triples and doubles rates of each sample must be separated by 1σ. The time it takes each system to separate the measured triples multiplicity rates was compared using 20 metal samples of 237Np with masses logarithmically distributed between 10 and 1000 g. The results show that the OSMC can distinguish the smallest masses (10.0 and 12.7 g) beyond 1σ in 20 min and that the ENMC requires more than 400 times the measurement time to obtain the same precision. Similarly, the OSMC is at least 4.5 times faster than the ENMC in separating the doubles multiplicity rates.
