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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 RAIN scale: A good intention that falls short
Radiation protection specialists agree that clear communication of radiation risks remains a vexing challenge that cannot be solved solely by finding new ways to convey technical information.
Earlier this year, an article in Nuclear News described a new radiation risk communication tool, known as the Radiation Index, or, RAIN (“Let it RAIN: A new approach to radiation communication,” NN, Jan. 2025, p. 36). The authors of the article created the RAIN scale to improve radiation risk communication to the general public who are not well-versed in important aspects of radiation exposures, including radiation dose quantities, units, and values; associated health consequences; and the benefits derived from radiation exposures.
Rodolfo M. Ferrer, HyeongKae Park
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 196 | Number 6 | June 2022 | Pages 637-650
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2021.2011668
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The recently developed High-Order, Low-Order scheme for the solution of thermal radiative transfer problems is applied as an acceleration method to the neutral particle transport equation. The resulting Corner Balance Nonlinear Diffusion Acceleration (CB-NDA) is derived, and a stability analysis is performed in conjunction with moment-based, spatially linear discretizations. These spatial discretizations correspond to the lumped Linear Discontinuous (LD) and Linear Characteristic (LC) schemes, which possess the thick diffusion limit. The lumped LD and LC schemes satisfy corner balance equations, which in turn are used to derive the CB-NDA. Two variants of the CB-NDA include the net current and partial current formulations. Numerical results are presented that verify the theoretical predictions and implementation. Theoretical spectral radius from the analysis is verified by comparison to values from the numerical solution of a one-dimensional transport problem. Results indicate similar stability between the CB-NDA–accelerated lumped LD and LC schemes. The net current–based CB-NDA is found to be unstable whereas the partial current formulation remains stable over the range of scattering ratios and optical thicknesses.