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Meeting 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!
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The U.S. Million Person Study of Low-Dose-Rate Health Effects
There is a critical knowledge gap regarding the health consequences of exposure to radiation received gradually over time. While there is a plethora of studies on the risks of adverse outcomes from both acute and high-dose exposures, including the landmark study of atomic bomb survivors, these are not characteristic of the chronic exposure to low-dose radiation encountered in occupational and public settings. In addition, smaller cohorts have limited numbers leading to reduced statistical power.
Michael Pietrykowski, Carol Smidts (Ohio State)
Proceedings | Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control, and Human-Machine Interface Technolgies (NPIC&HMIT 2019) | Orlando, FL, February 9-14, 2019 | Pages 296-307
Hardware-in-the-loop test configurations require real-time execution speeds from their simulation components for best results. Slower-than-real-time simulations can degrade test result accuracy, completely invalidate a test, and potentially even damage the hardware component being tested; however, some simulations required for testing cannot be guaranteed to run in real time or faster-than-real-time. Thus, we developed a method to allow slower-than-real-time simulations to be used in HIL test setups. Input signals to the simulation are predicted using a simplified hardware model. The simulation uses these predicted values to run “ahead” of the hardware component in time. When a sufficient time margin is obtained, depending on the actual execution speed of the simulation, the hardware component is connected to the stored simulation results computed using the predicted inputs from the hardware model and the test commences. Simulation results are supplied to the hardware component in real time, for as long as the simulation time margin remains. A case study using a small modular reactor simulation code shows that using this method allows test lengths at least 350% longer and simulation error of 0.6% compared to 36%.