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Reimagining nuclear materials for the future of medicine
Nuclear medicine has come a long way since Henri Becquerel first observed the penetrating energy of radioactive materials in 1896. Today, technetium-99m alone is used in more than 40 million diagnostic procedures every year—from cardiovascular imaging and bone scans to cancer detection—making it the undisputed workhorse of nuclear medicine. That single statistic tells you something important: An enormous portion of modern diagnostic medicine rests on a surprisingly narrow foundation, one built around a small number of aging research reactors that were never originally designed for continuous isotope production.
Jarmo Kalilainen, Haeseong Kim, Abdel Dehbi, Terttaliisa Lind (PSI)
Proceedings | 2018 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2018) | Charlotte, NC, April 8-11, 2018 | Pages 571-577
Particle depletion in an enclosure with turbulent natural convection was investigated using severe accident code MELCOR 2.1. A model of the experimental DIANA facility was created and the results of the simulation were compared against the experimental and LES data from earlier work. Three particle sizes 0.5 ?m, 1.0 ?m and 2.5 ?m were used in the study. The temperature difference between the vertical isothermal walls of the enclosure was varied between 40 K, 20 K and 10 K. The MELCOR model reproduced the stratified temperature field and the encircling natural convective flow in the cavity qualitatively. The deposition rate was well matched between the MELCOR and experimental data, but further analysis indicated that the thermophoresis was overestimated in the MELCOR modeling, thus compensating for the turbulent deposition, which was not considered in this MELCOR simulation work.