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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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Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
J. R. Trinko, Jr., S. H. Hanauer
Nuclear Technology | Volume 8 | Number 6 | June 1970 | Pages 522-530
Technique | doi.org/10.13182/NT70-A28652
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A pulse-mode neutron detection system designed for reactor noise measurements was characterized and compared with conventional current-mode noise measurement systems. Pulses from a proportional counter with a 60-nsec electron collection time were amplified and applied to a discriminator and thence to a counting-rate circuit with a time constant of 15 µsec. Statistical fluctuations in the counting-rate voltage were frequency analyzed. Under conditions of negligible gamma flux and counting loss, the pulse system yielded frequency spectra indistinguishable from ion-chamber spectra. The results were not very sensitive to counting loss up to at least 20%, but the effect of counting loss limited the ultimate useful neutron flux for the system tested to <2 × 106 n/(cm2 sec). Space charge and gamma pileup in the detector controlled the performance of the pulse system in high gamma fluxes; the pulse system performed better than the best available current system over a limited range of neutron- and gamma-flux intensities. Because of its shorter time constant, the pulse-mode system can be used to measure power spectral density at much higher frequencies than the current-mode system. Thus, the pulse-mode system appears to be the more attractive for fast reactor subcriticality measurements.
