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Hanford contractor settles fraud suit for $3.45M
Hanford Site services contractor Hanford Mission Integration Solutions (HMIS) has agreed to pay the Department of Justice $3.45 million as part of a settlement agreement resolving allegations that HMIS overcharged the Department of Energy for millions of dollars in labor hours at the nuclear site in Washington state.
Tomohiro Endo, Fuga Nishioka, Akio Yamamoto, Kenichi Watanabe, Cheol Ho Pyeon
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 2 | February 2023 | Pages 176-188
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2049992
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Pál-Bell equation is a backward-type master equation that describes the probability generating function (PGF) of neutron counts in a neutron multiplication system. Thanks to the Pál-Bell equation with the two-forked and the fundamental mode approximations, an analytical solution of PGF of neutron counts in a source-driven subcritical system can be theoretically derived. This theoretical derivation clarifies that the unique combination number of double factorial (2n−3)!! does exist in the ratio of the higher-order neutron correlation factors measured in a critical state even for any kind of fissile and moderator materials. Additionally, the unique combination numbers are experimentally validated for the order 3 ≤ n ≤ 6 through reactor noise measurements in actual subcritical systems. This knowledge can be used to judge whether a target system is in a deep subcritical state or to roughly estimate the magnitude of subcriticality, based on the factorial moments of the measured reactor noise in a zero-power state.