Radiation protection at synchrotron radiation facilities

A synchrotron radiation (SR) facility typically consists of an injector, a storage ring, and SR beamlines. The latter two features are unique to SR facilities, when compared to other types of accelerator facilities. The SR facilities have the characteristics of low injection beam power, but high stored beam power. The storage ring is generally above ground with people occupying the experimental floor around a normally thin concrete ring wall. This paper addresses the radiation issues, in particular the shielding design, associated with the storage ring and SR beamlines. Normal and abnormal beam losses for injection and stored beams, as well as typical storage ring operation, are described. Ring shielding design for photons and neutrons from beam losses in the ring is discussed. Radiation safety issues and shielding design for SR beamlines, considering gas bremsstrahlung and synchrotron radiation, are reviewed. Radiation source terms and the methodologies for shielding calculations are presented.     

Radiation protection at nuclear fuel cycle facilities

Radiation protection methodologies concerning individual monitoring, workplace monitoring and environmental monitoring in nuclear fuel facilities have been developed and applied to facilities in the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Engineering Laboratories (NCL) of Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) for over 40 y. External exposure to photon, beta ray and neutron and internal exposure to alpha emitter are important issues for radiation protection at these facilities. Monitoring of airborne and surface contamination by alpha and beta/photon emitters at workplace is also essential to avoid internal exposure. A critical accident alarm system developed by JAEA has been proved through application at the facilities for a long time. A centralised area monitoring system is effective for emergency situations. Air and liquid effluents from facilities are monitored by continuous monitors or sampling methods to comply with regulations. Effluent monitoring has been carried out for 40 y to assess the radiological impacts on the public and the environment due to plant operation.     

Radiation protection at medical accelerators

This paper focuses on radiation protection at proton and light ion accelerators for radiotherapy. The National Centre of Hadrontherapy, which is planned to he built in Italy in the next five years, is considered as a reference facility for applying the various methodologies presented. The shielding design is firstly discussed, together with that of the access maze to the treatment rooms. Subsequently, the main aspects for the estimate of the air activation in the environment hosting the accelerator system are described. The estimate of the dose equivalent due to the activated air transferred to the neighbourhood population is also treated. Outlines are given of the radioactivity induced by the primary beam in the materials constituting the magnets and the patient's personal collimator.     

Radiation protection at low energy proton accelerators

A sample is provided of the radiological safety issues particular to low energy proton accelerators. 'Low' energy in this context is taken to mean proton energies of less than about 1 GeV. Many of the radiation issues are common to all particle accelerators. Here, those issues are addressed that may require perhaps not unique treatment but those which benefit from a different approach. Among the problems discussed are the generation of prompt radiation and its transmission through shielding, the estimation of induced radioactivity, and the assessments of both the off-site prompt radiation hazard and the effect of releases of radioactive effluents to the environment.     

Radiation protection at high energy proton accelerators

The radiological problems associated with proton accelerators having maximum energies higher than a few GeV are discussed. Examples are given from accelerators where the authors have had practical experience for a number of years. The main focus will be on those problems which are unique to high energy proton accelerators, and which may not be necessarily associated with the proton beam operation itself.     

Radiation protection system at the RIKEN RI beam factory

The RIKEN RI (radioactive isotope) Beam Factory is scheduled to commence operations in 2006, and its maximum energy will be 400 MeV u(-1) for ions lighter than Ar and 350 MeV u(-1) for uranium. The beam intensity will be 1 pmicroA (6 x 10(12) particles s(-1)) for any element at the goal. For the hands-on-maintenance and the rational shield thickness of the building, the beam loss must be controlled with several kinds of monitors. Three types of radiation monitors will be installed. The first one consists of a neutron dose equivalent monitor and an ionisation chamber, which are commercially available area monitors. The second one is a conventional hand-held dose equivalent monitor wherein the logarithmic signal is read by a programmable logic controller based on the radiation safety interlock system (HIS). The third one is a simple plastic scintillator called a beam loss monitor. All the monitors have threshold levels for alarm and beam stop, and HIS reads all these signals.     

Radiation safety systems for accelerator facilities

The radiation safety system RSS) of an accelerator facility is used to protect people from prompt radiation hazards associated with accelerator operation. The RSS is a fully interlocked, engineered system with a combination of passive and active elements that are reliable, redundant and fail-safe. The RSS consists of the access control system (ACS) and the radiation containment system (RCS). The ACS is to keep people away from the dangerous radiation inside the shielding enclosure. The RCS limits and contains the beam/radiation conditions to protect people from the prompt radiation hazards outside the shielding enclosure in both normal and abnormal operations. The complexity of an RSS depends on the accelerator and its operation. as well as associated hazard conditions. The approaches of RSS among different facilities can be different. This report gives a review of the RSS for accelerator facilities.     

Radiation protection and environmental management at the relativistic heavy ion collider

Organ doses and effective dose were calculated with the latest version of the Monte Carlo transport code FLUKA in the case of an anthropomorphic mathematical model exposed to monoenergetic narrow beams of protons, pions and electrons in the energy range 10-400 GeV. The target organs considered were right eye, thyroid, thymus, lung and breast. Simple scaling laws to the calculated values are given. The present data and formulae should prove useful for dosimetric estimations in the case of accidental exposures to high energy beams.     

Radiation protection and international intrigue

By the time this editorial is published, it is likely that muchmore will be known about the international intrigue involvedin the recent death of a former Russian KGB agent in London.At present, the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko resultingfrom the apparent ingestion of ²¹⁰Po is being investigated bya number of international police agencies. Assistance in relationto concerns about public health has also been provided by theHealth Protection Agency in the United Kingdom. In fact, a     

Radiation protection issues for laser-based accelerators

Radiation particles, besides their application to fundamental research, are widely applied in all fields of science (medicine, material science, chemistry, etc.). Up to today the radiations were produced by radiation sources such as accelerators, X-ray tubes, radioactive sources with the well-known problems of costs, parameters and safety. For the last few years, following the development of lasers able to focus ultra-short high-intensity pulses onto targets, the generation of ionising radiation by intense lasers has become possible. The paper will focus on some radiological protection aspects around the Frascati Laser for Acceleration and Multidisciplinary Experiments, 300 TW laser being commissioned at National Laboratories of Frascati.     

The data acquisition and reduction challenge at the Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider detectors are technological marvels-which resemble, in functionality, three-dimensional digital cameras with 100 Mpixels-capable of observing proton-proton (pp) collisions at the crossing rate of 40 MHz. Data handling limitations at the recording end imply the selection of only one pp event out of each 10(5). The readout and processing of this huge amount of information, along with the selection of the best approximately 200 events every second, is carried out by a trigger and data acquisition system, supplemented by a sophisticated control and monitor system. This paper presents an overview of the challenges that the development of these systems has presented over the past 15 years. It concludes with a short historical perspective, some lessons learnt and a few thoughts on the future.     

Radiation protection and shielding design--strengthening the link

The improvement in quality and flexibility of shielding methods and data has been progressive and beneficial in opening up new opportunities for optimising radiation protection in design. The paper describes how these opportunities can best be seized by taking a holistic view of radiation protection, with shielding design being an important component part. This view is best achieved by enhancing the role of 'shielding assessors' so that they truly become 'radiation protection designers'. The increase in speed and efficiency of shielding calculations has been enormous over the past decades. This has raised the issue of how the assessor's time now can be best utilised; pursuing ever greater precision and accuracy in shielding/dose assessments, or improving the contribution that shielding assessment makes to radiological protection and cost-effective design. It is argued in this paper that the latter option is of great importance and will give considerable benefits. Shielding design needs to form part of a larger radiation protection perspective based on a deep understanding/appreciation of the opportunities and constraints of operators and designers, enabling minimal design iterations, cost optimisation of alternative designs (with a 'lifetime' perspective) and improved realisation of design intent in operations. The future of shielding design development is argued to be not in improving the 'toolkit', but in enhanced understanding of the 'product' and the 'process' for achieving it. The holistic processes being developed in BNFL to realise these benefits are described in the paper and will be illustrated by case studies.     

Radiation protection dosimetry for diagnostic radiology patients

The radiation protection of patients undergoing medical X-ray examinations is governed by the principles of justification and optimisation. Radiation dosimetry is required to inform medical practitioners of the levels of exposure and hence the risks from the diagnostic procedures that they have to justify and to assist the operators of X-ray imaging equipment to determine whether their procedures are optimised. This paper describes the main dosimetric methods that have been developed to meet these requirements. Suitable radiation risk projection models are used to predict the risks to patients in the UK from computed tomography examinations, as a function of age at exposure and sex, and show that the lifetime risk of fatal cancer can reach 1 in 1000 for children. The concept of 'diagnostic reference levels' as an aid to the optimisation of medical exposures is described, and progress in implementing them in the UK is reported.     

Radiation protection for an ultra-high intensity laser

Radiological characterisation of an experimental chamber and other areas of an ultra-high intensity laser facility (-terawatt) revealed significant levels of X ray, gamma and neutron radiation. Different techniques were used to detect and measure this radiation: TLD. photographic film, bubble detectors and germanium spectrometry. A test series of radiological measurements was made for 150 laser shots (300 femtoseconds) with energies in the 1 to 20 J range and a target illuminance of 10(19) W.cm2. Gamma dose equivalents in the vicinity of the chamber varied between 0.7 and 73 mSv. The dose equivalent due to the neutron component was evaluated to be 1% of the gamma dose equivalent. The amount of radiation generated depends on the laser energy and the nature of the target. No activation or contamination of the chamber or target holder were observed. Ultra-high intensity lasers are being extensively developed at the present time and the investigations performed demonstrate that it is necessary to take radiological risks into consideration in the design of ultra-high intensity laser facilities and to define personnel access conditions.     

Heavy-ion physics with the ALICE experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider

After close to 20 years of preparation, the dedicated heavy-ion experiment A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE) took first data at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) accelerator with proton collisions at the end of 2009 and with lead nuclei at the end of 2010. After a short introduction into the physics of ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions, this article recalls the main design choices made for the detector and summarizes the initial operation and performance of ALICE. Physics results from this first year of operation concentrate on characterizing the global properties of typical, average collisions, both in proton-proton (pp) and nucleus-nucleus reactions, in the new energy regime of the LHC. The pp results differ, to a varying degree, from most quantum chromodynamics-inspired phenomenological models and provide the input needed to fine tune their parameters. First results from Pb-Pb are broadly consistent with expectations based on lower energy data, indicating that high-density matter created at the LHC, while much hotter and larger, still behaves like a very strongly interacting, almost perfect liquid.     

The Large Hadron Collider

The construction of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been a massive endeavour spanning almost 30 years from conception to commissioning. Building the machine with the highest possible energy (7 TeV) in the existing large electron-positron (LEP) collider tunnel of 27 km circumference and with a tunnel diameter of only 3.8 m has required considerable innovation. The first was the development of a two-in-one magnet, where the two rings are integrated into a single magnetic structure. This compact two-in-one structure was essential for the LHC owing to the limited space available in the existing LEP collider tunnel and the cost. The second was a bold move to the use of superfluid helium cooling on a massive scale, which was imposed by the need to achieve a high (8.3 T) magnetic field using an affordable Nb-Ti superconductor.     

Radiation protection aspects of a 4 MW target

The CERN Superconducting Proton Linac (SPL) is expected to provide a 2.2 GeV, 4 MW proton beam to feed facilities such as, for example, a neutrino factory or a neutrino superbeam. Material activation in such facilities is an important aspect that has to be taken into account at an early stage in designing it. In particular, the choice of the target has consequences on the induced radioactivity and dose rates in the target station and its surroundings. In the present work, the radiological aspects of a stationary target made up of tantalum pellets are compared with those of a free-surface jet of mercury. An estimation of the hadronic inelastic interactions and the production of residual nuclei in the target, the two concentric magnetic horns, the decay tunnel, the surrounding rock and a downstream dump were performed for both targets using the Monte Carlo code FLUKA. The aim was to assess the dose-equivalent rate that is to be expected during maintenance work and to evaluate the amount of residual radioactivity, which will have to be disposed of after the facility has ceased operation. The problem of after-heat in the tantalum target and the consequences of raising the proton beam energy from 2.2 to 4 GeV were also investigated.     

Neutron radiation area monitoring system for proton therapy facilities

A neutron radiation area monitoring system has been developed for proton accelerator facilities dedicated to cancer therapy. The system comprises commercial measurement equipment, computer hardware and a suite of software applications that were developed specifically for use in a medical accelerator environment. The system is designed to record and display the neutron dose-equivalent readings from 16 to 24 locations (depending on the size of the proton therapy centre) throughout the facility. Additional software applications provide for convenient data analysis, plotting, radiation protection reporting, and system maintenance and administration tasks. The system performs with a mean time between failures of >6 months. Required data storage capabilities and application execution times are met with inexpensive off-the-shelf computer hardware.