No abstract available

[en] Combined effects of different environmental factors can result in large uncertainties in the dose estimates obtained from the use of routine dosimeters in production ⁶⁰Co irradiators. Studies were performed to determine the variation of dose rates and temperature in production irradiators and to reduce the uncertainty introduced by combined effects caused by the non-uniform rate of energy absorption. Methods for calculating dose rates were reviewed and calculated dose rates were compared with measured dose rates to provide a better understanding of the magnitude of the dose rate variations. The use of pairs of transfer standard dosimeters having approximately equal but opposite temperature coefficients were studied as a method to reduce the uncertainties in the dose estimate for the transfer standard dosimeters caused by uncertainties in the estimate of effective temperature. (author)

[en] Early adopters of ultrafiltration (UF) technology for pretreatment in SWR desalination plants have used membrane-based technology mainly for its ability to reliability treat difficult feedwater. Often a case is made that integrated, or dual membrane systems are less expensive than conventional schemes. Sometimes a case is made that even a pretreatment system can be less expensive, which is especially true when a stand-alone UF unit is compared to enhanced conventional pretreatment techniques that use extended primary treatment (chamber coagulation, clarification processes) and multiple stages of media filtration. This article focuses on more recent drivers for UF adoption, especially on treatment schemes that reduce costs by minimizing environmental impact and the use of primary treatment techniques. (Author) 4 refs.

No abstract available

[en] Short communications only

[en] Full text: A simplified technique for measuring beatlength in birefringent optical fibres using magnetic modulation was analysed, and tested experimentally. By avoiding the use of unnecessary optical components and splicing to the fibre under test, the beatlength was measured accurately with good signal-to-noise ratio

[en] In this paper we report radiation effects in radiation-hardened power VDMOSFET devices with different cell structures (stripe-cell and hexagonal-cell) at various irradiation doses of X-ray (45 kV acceleration voltage) by means of DCIV measurements as well as sub-threshold methods, and observed that radiation damages are closely related to cell geometry of the chips. Both radiation-induced oxide charges and interface traps in the chips with stripe cell are smaller than those with hex cell under the same irradiation dose because they have different stresses in the cells. Moreover, the recombination current peaks show a saturation feature when X-ray irradiation dose come to about 4 Mrads (from ∼4 to 14.4 Mrads) in the radiation-hardened samples

[en] Full text: The third generation of synchrotrons brings undulators that opens up a range of new unique coherence-based experiment areas of investigation. A technique to measure the spatial coherence of x-rays from undulators is presented. The essence of the coherence measurement technique is based on the interpretation of a complex diffraction pattern. A diffracting structure known as a Uniformly Redundant Array (URA) is used. Simulations using experimental parameters based on an undulator beamline at Advanced Photon Source at the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago, USA, have been performed

[en] A study has been carried out to assess the sensitivity of fuel power transients to variations in key physics and thermal hydraulic modelling input parameters. The purpose is to examine the influence of these parameters on the power pulse following a large LOCA. The predicted key results (such as bulk, hot bundle and hot channel energy deposition), thus obtained, are then compared with those of the reference case. The key parameters considered for this assessment are delayed neutron data, prompt neutron lifetime, decay power and the fuel to coolant heat transfer model. It is found that the maximum increase in power pulse is approximately 14 percent or lower. Therefore, the sensitivity of the power pulse to input modelling parameters does not change drastically for the variations considered in these parameters. (author)

[en] Two industrial scale, 'ROBO' type ⁶⁰Co gamma irradiation facilities have recently been put into operation in Syria and Peru, and the dosimetry commissioning of both plants have been carried out to determine dose distribution within products and to calculate plant parameters such as efficiency, dose uniformity ratio and throughput. There are some design modifications between the two plants in connection with the location of the carriers with respect to the source plaque and also to each other. The effect of these construction modifications on the plant parameters is discussed in the analysis of the dose distribution data measured in the carriers with depth and height among the four irradiation rows on both sides of the source plaque. The plant parameters were also calculated for different product densities using the technical data of the facilities, and the calculated and measured results were compared to each other