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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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Latest News
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.
Rofida H. Khlifa, Nicolay N. Nikitenkov, Viktor N. Kudiiarov
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 198 | Number 4 | April 2024 | Pages 825-831
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2023.2224464
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Chromium carbide (CrC) coatings were proposed as an accident-tolerant fuel complementary concept to provide enhanced protection for the inner side of nuclear fuel claddings, with preliminary results showing promising performance. To evaluate the neutronics performance of CrC coatings, a reactor physics–based analysis was performed. A single VVER-1200 fuel assembly was used as a model, and the Monte Carlo code MCNPX was used to perform the calculations. Results were compared to previous work on metallic chromium performance as inner-side coating material. Results showed that CrC coatings generally have less negative impacts on neutronics performance compared to chromium coatings. Neutron flux spectra showed slight reductions in the thermal energy region that reached up to −0.6% in a 40-µm CrC internally coated fuel assembly at an energy of 0.025 eV. The analysis of CrC internally coated fuel assembly nuclide inventories showed a relative increase in the isotopic concentration of some nuclides such as 239Pu and 241Pu, which was less than 1% for the cases considered. Comparing the calculated negative neutronics impacts, such as thermal neutron flux and fuel assembly operating time reductions, caused by CrC and Cr coating materials, the study revealed that the difference between these induced negative neutronics impacts is proportional to coating thickness. Therefore, CrC coatings will be most effective in terms of mitigating negative neutronics impacts when the specified coating thickness is large.
