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Accelerator Radiation Safety Newsletter |
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An Official Publication of the Health Physics Society's Accelerator Section Circulation: 465 |
First Quarter 2010 / |
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FROM THE OFFICERS The President's
Message Another Health Physics Society midyear meeting has come and gone. This year’s meeting in Albuquerque was on the topic of risk communication, which is pertinent to all of us in radiation protection but in a year of tight funding, may not have seemed so to those who manage the travel budgets of accelerator health physicists. So it is understandable that representation by the Accelerator Section was sparse, and the section’s board of directors did not meet because we did not have a quorum present.
Against all odds, then, several section members did attend and presented papers at the Albuquerque meeting. These presentations are continuing proof of the wide range of challenges we face in our daily work. The President Elect’s
Message This first quarter of 2010 has been very busy so I’m providing an index here for the subjects that are contained in this article: · The 2010 NCRP Annual Meeting · The 2010 HPS Annual Meeting and PDS · The 2010 Dade Moeller Lecture The 2010 NCRP Annual Meeting: This year the 46th Annual Meeting of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) was held on March 8-9, 2010 at the Hyatt Regency Bethesda, Bethesda, Maryland. The meeting, on “Communication of Radiation Benefits and Risks in Decision Making,” was most interesting and despite the appearance of possible overlap with the 2010 HPS Midyear Meeting’s subject as noted in Linnea’s article in this newsletter, I was assured by a number of participants who had attended the Midyear that the topics were generally different and more focused at the NCRP meeting on the issue of risk communications as provided by scientific bodies and governmental agencies. Photographs from the meeting are available on the NCRP’s website for your review. |
Also of interest • Professional Development School OFFICERS
Mike Duran, Los Alamos National Lab Elsa Nimmo, University of California, Berkeley Reg Ronningen, Michigan State
University Jack Topper, Livermore National Lab |
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Announcement: USPAS at MIT, June 2-4, 2010 The U.S. Particle
Accelerator School is offering a program of graduate-level credit courses
sponsored by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and held in
Boston, MA from June 14-25, 2010.
Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) Accelerator: International High Energy Neutron Dosimetry Inter-Comparison Experiment LANSCE operational health physics and radiation measurements personnel, in concert with personnel from KEK, will conduct a high energy neutron dosimetry inter-comparison at the Weapons Neutron Research facility (WNR) 15 degree left flight path. The neutron spectrum on the 15L flight path is very well characterized using time of flight measurements. Characterized neutrons range in energy from 20 MeV to 800 MeV. Personnel from other accelerators are invited to participate in the inter-comparison. For further information, contact Scott Walker at swalker@lanl.gov or Tom McLean at tmclean@lanl.gov.
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FROM THE CORRESPONDENTS Report from the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
Since our last report from Fermilab in May 2009, a major planned shutdown of 13 weeks duration was successfully carried out during the summer months. At Fermilab, as elsewhere, while major shutdowns afford the opportunity to make major improvements to the performance an accelerator they are also the periods when the most dose is received due to work on activated machine components. During this shutdown, numerous major and minor maintenance and improvement tasks were performed. A synopsis of the more significant tasks was provided by Gary Lauten of Fermilab’s Accelerator Division:
· The 400 MeV momentum dump vacuum window was replaced. This task was performed at the high energy end of Fermilab’s 400 MeV linac injector. The exposure rates encountered were 10 R h-1 in a severely restricted work space. During the job planning, the estimated collective dose was 1.2 persom-rem while the actual result was 0.89 person-rem. · The target for the Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI) beam was replaced. The exposure rates were 11 R h-1 at one foot. The pre-job estimate of the collective dose was 0.36 person-rem while the actual result was 0.27 person-rem.
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