ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
Standards Program
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Jul 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
July 2025
Latest News
Moving past Sayre’s Law on low-dose radiation
Craig Piercycpiercy@ans.org
So, President Trump has just kicked the low-dose radiation hornets’ nest.
Specifically, his recently signed executive order “Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission” calls for the NRC to “reconsider reliance” on the linear no-threshold (LNT) theory and the ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) standard for radiation protection.
This directive will certainly reignite a vociferous debate within the radiation research community over the continued efficacy of using LNT as the basis for protecting the public and the environment, a community that has been wracked with controversy on this matter for the last few years.
I must admit that whenever the low-dose issue comes up, my first thoughts always go to Sayre’s Law.
Fritz G. Schirmers, Adam Davis, H. Omar Wooten, Donald J. Dudziak, Man-Sung Yim, David McNelis
Nuclear Technology | Volume 167 | Number 3 | September 2009 | Pages 395-409
Technical Paper | Radiation Protection | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-1
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Slant-path photon buildup factors for nine radiation shielding materials (air, aluminum, concrete, iron, lead, leaded glass, polyethylene, stainless steel, and water) are calculated with the most recent cross-section data available using Monte Carlo and discrete ordinates methods. Discrete ordinates calculations use a 244-group energy structure based on previous research at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and focus on the effects of group widths in multigroup calculations for low-energy photons. Buildup-factor calculations in discrete ordinates benefit from coupled photon/electron cross sections to account for secondary photon effects. Also, ambient dose equivalent buildup factors were analyzed at lower energies where corresponding response functions do not exist in the literature. The results of these studies are directly applicable to radiation safety at LANL, where the dose-modeling code PANDEMONIUM is used to estimate worker dose in plutonium-handling facilities. Buildup factors determined in this work will be used to enhance the code's modeling capabilities but also should be of general interest to the radiation shielding community.