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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.
Davide Bozzato, Robert Froeschl
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 198 | Number 2 | February 2024 | Pages 486-496
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2023.2211191
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
At high-energy accelerator facilities like the ones that are part of the accelerator complex at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Monte Carlo radiation transport codes are widely employed to face the challenges of estimating radionuclide production yields and activities with the aim of performing the radiological characterization of activated components. Indeed, it is of paramount importance to ensure adequate radiation protection during scheduled maintenance, transport, and handling of these components and to establish their proper disposal pathway once they ultimately reach the end of their useful life. This paper summarizes the principles of the fluence conversion coefficients method that was developed as a complementary approach for radiological characterization studies. Then, the Monte Carlo simulations in preparation to the pilot beam run at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in 2021 are presented as a practical example of possible applications. Finally, the flexibility of the method and the most relevant operational radiation protection implications are discussed in relation to the provided example.