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The human factor in licensing and operating the next generation of nuclear plants
As human factors specialists working at the intersection of human performance and nuclear operations, we are witnessing one of the nuclear sector’s most significant transitions in decades. The emergence of small modular reactors, microreactors, and other advanced designs is reshaping the industry’s landscape. Digital instrumentation and controls, passive safety systems, and increased automation are creating opportunities for greater safety margins and more flexible operation. These same features also fundamentally redefine what it means to “operate” a nuclear plant. Interactions among human roles, automation, and passive systems shape how people maintain awareness, exercise judgment, and intervene when necessary. These developments affect both operational realities and the regulatory foundations on which nuclear safety is built.
Bin Han, X. George Xu, Matt Davidson, Bryan Bednarz, Gregory C. Sharp, George T. Y. Chen
Nuclear Technology | Volume 175 | Number 1 | July 2011 | Pages 58-62
Technical Paper | Special Issue on the 16th Biennial Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division / Radiation Transport and Protection | doi.org/10.13182/NT11-A12270
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The superior dose conformation from protons is attributed to the Bragg peak near the end of the proton range. One challenge in proton cancer treatment is to assess the proton range fluctuations due to organ motion such as respiration. A time-resolved proton range telescope that measures coordinates, direction cosines, and the residual range of each proton can be useful in detecting and quantifying variations in radiological path length during the course of proton radiotherapy. In this paper, the Monte Carlo N-Particle eXtended (MCNPX) code was used to simulate the range telescope and study the image quality. To validate the MCNPX simulations, a simulated proton radiograph was compared with an experimentally acquired film for the same phantom. In addition, four quality assurance phantoms were simulated to investigate the quality of simulated proton radiography. Finally, the methods were applied to one phase of a patient four-dimensional computed tomography (4DCT) data set for proton radiography simulations. The results indicate that Monte Carlo simulations offer data that are useful in analyzing image spatial and temporal resolutions. Simulations show that it is useful to quantify the tumor position changes due to respiration by using a proton telescope.