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Accelerator Radiation Safety Newsletter |
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An Official Publication of the Health Physics Society's Accelerator Section Circulation: 476 |
Second Quarter 2011 / |
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FROM THE OFFICERS The President's
Message In this second quarter 2011 issue of the newsletter, we have Linnea Wahl’s report on the Founders Award, the text of
Ralph Thomas’ speech from the 2011 HPS Awards Banquet on June 28th,
Scott Schwahn on the Section’s nominations process,
Lorraine Day’s items on the upcoming IPAC 12 meeting and CAMD update, as well
as a US Particle Accelerator School announcement. Since this is my last article as the Section’s President, I will
be discussing a fairly wide-ranging set of topics regarding developments at
the 2011 HPS Annual Meeting, progress on the 2013 HPS Mid-Year Meeting, and
some final thoughts. The Past President's
Message With great pleasure I announce that Ralph Thomas was awarded the
2011 Health Physics Society's Founders Award on June 28, 2011, in West Palm
Beach, Florida. Dr. Thomas's nomination was endorsed by the HPS Accelerator
Section, two California chapters, and dozens of prominent accelerator health
physicists and researchers from around the world. Ralph Thomas is most deserving of the HPS Founders Award, one of
the greatest honors the society can bestow. His service to the HPS
Accelerator Section alone is worthy of this honor. He was a founding member
of the section, serving as its second president after no less a luminary as
H. Wade Patterson. His publications are numerous and varied, and they include
the classic text, Accelerator Health
Physics, written with H. Wade
Patterson. Most recently he chaired the committee that produced NCRP Report
144, Radiation Protection for Particle
Accelerator Facilities. I could go on—Ralph Thomas has made so many contributions to the
field of accelerator health physics. The Accelerator Section is indeed
fortunate to count Ralph as one of our members and founders. Congratulations to
Dr. Thomas on receiving the 2011 HPS Founders Award and thanks for all he has
done for the Accelerator Section and the professional accelerator health physics. |
Also of interest • Professional Development School OFFICERS
Eric Burgett, Idaho State University Lorraine Marceau-Day, Louisiana State University Elsa Nimmo, University of California, Berkeley Reg Ronningen, Michigan State University |
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Founders Award Acceptance Speech (Ralph Thomas says “Thank You”) Mr. President, Honoured Guests, friends and
colleagues. My purpose tonight is, simply, to say “Thank-you!” Earlier, in a brief chat with our president Ed Maher
I reached the conclusion that had he been a director of a symphony orchestra he
would have had a preference for music annotated “vivace”. So, to the best of my
ability here goes! First, please allow me to introduce two very special
guests who have travelled from the San Francisco Bay Area to “be with their
Dad” tonight: my younger daughter Susie Homer and her husband Dave. IPAC12 in New
Orleans May 20-25, 2012 The European, Asian
and American Particle Accelerator Conferences have merged into the
International Particle Accelerator Conference. The last
“European” Conference will be held in San Sebastian next September.
Thereafter, all the conferences will be under IPAC. The conference will
rotate from the Americas to Europe and Asia.
IPAC12 will be held in New Orleans Louisiana nest May
20-25 in New Orleans, Louisiana. From the
Nominations Committee Chair Dear Colleagues, USPAS at
University of Texas, Austin January 16 – 27, 2012 The U.S. Particle
Accelerator School is offering a program of graduate-level credit courses
sponsored by the University of Texas at Austin from January
16-27, 2012. One undergraduate-level course and 11 graduate-level
courses will be offered. Two courses you may find particularly
interesting are "Radiation Physics, Regulation and Management"
taught by Don Cossairt and Diane Reitzner of Fermilab from
January 16-20. Offered from January 23-27 is "Controlling
Risks: Safety Systems" taught by Ken Barat and Patrick Bong of
Lawrence Berkeley Lab. Both courses will carry Continuing
Education credits from the American Academy of Health Physics.
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FROM THE CORRESPONDENTS News from CAMD As everyone is gearing up for the upcoming annual meeting in West
Palm Beach, we have all been reviewing our latest results. Here, at
CAMD, we are no different. At the moment we are evaluating more than 20
years of environmental monitoring for our facility. This is quite a
daunting task, especially, as the data is scattered in multiple places. At this time, CAMD remains in a seesaw pattern. We
have received funding for a new 7.5 T multi-pole wiggler. This means
moving several beamlines and our shield wall.
This insertion device will be installed late in 2012. Some of the new
designs of the beamlines also present some
interesting health physics challenges. The new tomography beamline will be installed with a Laue Monochromator. Our experience with such devices
indicates that they are major scattering devices. Since the ring
circumference, is a modest 55 meters, the introduction of multiple beamlines within a relatively small space means that
there is no one size fits all design for our radiation hutches, whether they
be primary optical enclosures or secondary hutches. There is also a
substantial increase in the power of the new insertion device compared with
the existing insertion device (Figure 1).
Due to the large scope of the work, we anticipate the shutdown to last
several months [at least with respect to achieving usable beam]. This
is due, in part, to the current budgetary constraints at the facility wherein
we can only afford to operate 14 hours per day on a
8/14 day schedule. One day is left for studies and another within this
2 week period for maintenance. Maintenance also includes any special
requirements such as interlock testing [mandated quarterly]. This
truncated schedule will also contribute to the extended shutdown period as
vacuum conditioning will take about 4 months to achieve normal user beam.
Of course, then as beam lifetime is shortened due to the poor vacuum,
additional injection periods will be required, which of course, will result
in additional radiation. Another significant project that is planned
[though currently, unfunded] is the upgrade of the Linac
from 200 MeV to 300 MeV.
This would significantly decrease the size of the beam during injection and
also permit longer lifetimes. There are significant health physics
issues here.
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