INTERNATIONAL ACCELERATOR RADIOLOGICAL PROTECTION E-MAIL (IARPE) NEWSLETTER "The Official Publication of the Accelerator Section of the Health Physics Society" (with Contributions from International Correspondents) ====================================================================== March/April 1995 Vol. 4, #2 ====================================================================== OFFICERS ====================================================================== President: Nisy Ipe, SLAC President-Elect: Bob May, CEBAF Past President: Geoff Stapleton, CEBAF Secretary: Steve Musolino, BNL Treasurer: Joe McDonald, PNL Newsletter Editor: Lutz Moritz, TRIUMF Directors: Lorraine Day (1997) Don Cossairt (1997),FNAL De Vaughn Nelson (1996) Paula Trinoskey (1996),LLNL Jerry Miller (1995), LAMPF Carter Ficklen (1995), CEBAF >From the Editor Lutz Moritz ====================================================================== The SLAC listserver through which we distribute the IARPE Newsletter has been moved from VMS to UNIX and we may experience a few teething problems. Please let me know of any problems that you may encounter with delivery. A World Wide Web Home Page has been established for health physics by the University of Michigan Student Chapter of the HPS. The main topics at the site are: general information for the public on radiation; information and links for the professional Health Physicist and researcher; and information for the HP student on fellowships, internships and other education-related material. The Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is http://www.umich.edu/~bbusby/ The site also has links to accelerator-related material including the ftp server for back-issues of the IARPE Newsletter. Wade Patterson volunteered and was duly appointed to the position of archivist for the Accelerator Section at last year's meeting. This is an important contribution to preserving the history of the Section and providing a sense of continuity. Wade would like anyone who has written or electronic material relating to the business of the Section (other than the minutes of the meetings or the IARPE Newsletter) to send him a copy properly identified and categorized. For more infor- mation contact Wade at: H. Wade Patterson 2130 Mountain Blvd. #105 Oakland, CA 94611-2903 Tel.: (510)-482-0105 E-mail: hwade@aol.com Accelerator Section Initiatives Nisy Ipe ====================================================================== 1. CASOG COMMITTEE The CASOG committee (Committee on Accelerator Safety Order and Guidance) consisting of representatives from the various DOE labs has been established to address issues related to the radiological aspects of the Accelerator Safety Order (DOE 5480.25) and its Guidance; and to provide recommendations to DOE. The purpose of the order is to establish safety program requirements specific to accelerator facilities. The committee members are: Art Ritchie (ALS), Harold Moe (APS), Steve Musolino (BNL), Bob May (CEBAF), Kamran Vaziri (Fermi), Olin VanDyck (LANL), Scott Walker (LANL), Roger Kloepping (LBL), Doug Bloomquist (Sandia), Ted Simmons (Sandia), Sayed Rokni (SLAC) and Nisy Ipe (Chair, SLAC). The first concern identified by the committee relates to hazard classification. The Order requires that each accelerator facility be assigned a hazard class using the Guidance. The Guidance states that the hazard class should be defined by: a) assuming that the passive shielding remains intact with gates and doors secured; b) assuming the credible "maximal accident" occurs, where the "maximal accident is that condition which produces, usually at the weakest part of the shielding and at full power, the greatest amount of radiation at the subject position outside the secured area during one hour; and c) comparing the calculated effective dose equivalent to the values in the table below: HAZARD CLASS OFF-SITE ON-SITE OUTSIDE SECURED AREAS LOW H < 1 1<= H<= 25 MODERATE 1 <= H <= 25 H > 25 HIGH H > 25 H > 25 where H is the prompt radiation effective dose equivalent in rem to an individual resulting from a potential accident. The guidance also states that credit is not to be taken for control or mitigation of the hazards by active engineered safety features (radiation controlled interlocks or other electronic beam limiting devices). Since most of the accelerator facilities rely on active engineered safety features to terminate machine operation in an unsafe condition, the above-mentioned requirement creates a tremen- dous burden for most facilities. A sub-committee chaired by Goeffrey Stapleton has been appointed to address issues specific to hazard classification. _____________________________________________________________________ 2. PROPOSED SYMPOSIUM - HEALTH PHYSICS OF RADIATION GENERATING MACHINES Some of you participated in a HPS mid-year topical symposium entitled "HEALTH PHYSICS OF RADIATION GENERATING MACHINES" held at Reno, Nevada. The Accelerator Section would like to make a proposal to the HPS to hold another similar symposium at the mid-year meeting of the HPS in San Jose, California. The Section has appointed Vashek Vylet to serve as the liaison between the local chapter of the Health Physics Society and the Accelerator Section to investigate the possibility of holding such a Symposium. Vashek hopes to submit a proposal to the Symposia Committee at the Annual HPS Meeting in Boston (July 1995). In order to help us with our proposal we need to identify the level of interest for such a symposium among members of the accelerator community. Would you take a few minutes to answer the following questionnaire? Questionnaire: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) Name, address, phone no., fax no., e-mail address, occupation. 2) Would you be interested in and willing to participate in a symposium on "The Health Physics of Radiation Producing Machines? 3) What are the topics that you would be interested in? 4) Would you consider presenting a paper at the symposium (if so, name possible topics)? 5) Would you be willing to serve on an organizing committee? 6) Would you be willing to serve on a technical program committee? 7) Would you be willing to teach a short course/tutorial (if so, identify subject matter)? Please return your response to Nisy Ipe by May 15, 1995. ______________________________________________________________________ 3. ACCELERATOR SECTION MEMBERSHIP DIRECTORY An Accelerator Section membership directory has been compiled by Joe McDonald (Treasurer) and distributed by Lutz Moritz (Editor) to all MEMBERS OF THE SECTION (ONLY!). If you are a member in good standing and have not received the directory, please contact Lutz Moritz. >From the Editor-in-chief, HPS Journal Ken Miller ====================================================================== To Our Friends in the Accelerator Section, In order to maintain a good mix of topics in the Journal, we need your help. We need more papers dealing with accelerator health physics. I urge you to consider the work that you are doing and to share it with your colleagues through publication in Health Physics. If there is any way in which the Editorial Staff can assist you, please let me know. I look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely, Ken Miller MEETINGS ====================================================================== The American Nuclear Society Radiation Protection & Shielding Division TOPICAL MEETING Cape Cod, Massachusetts CALL FOR PAPERS 1996 Radiation Protection and Shielding Division Topical Meeting: "Advancements and Applications in Radiation Protection and Shielding" April 21-25 1996, Sea Crest Resort, 350 Quaker Rd., N. Falmouth MA 02556 This is the official call for papers for the 1996 RPSD Topical Meeting. You are encouraged to submit 600-900 word summaries des- cribing significant advancements or innovative applications in the area of radiation protection and shielding. Please submit an original and two copies of the summary to the Technical Program Chair: Keith B. Spinney Yankee Atomic Electric Company 580 Main Street Bolton MA 01740-1398 Telephone:(508) 779-6711 X2039; Fax:(508) 779-6730; e-mail: spinney@yankee.com The deadline for submittal is August 16, 1995. Authors will be notified of selection on or about October 1, 1995. Full camera-ready papers will be due January 19, 1996 for inclusion in the proceedings which will be distributed at the meeting. Paper topics are being accepted for, but are not limited to, the following topics. Please indicate the applicable topic with the summary. Shielding Issues Reactor Cavity Gamma Dosimetry Accelerator Shielding Numerical Dosimetry Advanced Neutron Source Shielding Pressure Vessel Dosimetry Fusion Reactor Shielding Material Damage Correlations Point Kernel Techniques & Applications Radioactive Waste Issues Skyshine Analysis Low-Level Waste Packaging Space Reactor Shielding & Site Design Issues LMFBR Shielding High-Level Waste Packaging Transport Theory Analysis & Site Design Issues Advancements in Discrete Ordinates Interim Spent Fuel Storage Applications of Discrete Ordinates & Transport Casks Advancements in Monte Carlo Methods Site Characterization Applications of Monte Carlo Methods & Decommissioning Comparison of D.O. & M.C. Methods Health Physics/Medical Issues Benchmark Experiments & Integral ALARA Program Developments Tests Dose Reconstruction Cross Section Libraries & Data Environmental Monitoring Uncertainties for Public Perception Radiation Streaming Implications of 10CFR20 Computer Applications on Worker Perceptions Graphical User Interfaces Computational Methods Non-Traditional Geometries for Medical Applications for Transport Applications Radiation Epidemiology PC Applications/Computer Visualization & Health Effects Radiation Dosimetry Radiation Protection Standards & Material Damage for Medical Applications Radiation Detection & Measurement Component Activation Analysis Digital Dosimetry Workshops/tutorials will be held on MCNP, DORT/TORT and FLUKA. NOTE: The HPS Society and the Accelerator Section are co-sponsors of this conference. NEWS FROM IARPENL CORRESPONDENTS ====================================================================== News from CEBAF Bob May ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CEBAF Spectrometers Progressing Following CEBAF's December 1994 first physics measurements using the high momentum spectrometer (HMS) in Hall C, key additional progress has been made in all three halls toward spectrometer operation. On March 22, 1995 the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) super- conducting toroidal magnet in Hall B reached full field at the design current of 3861 A. Two days later, the dipole magnet for the Hall A electron arm High Resolution Spectrometer (HRS) achieved 1800 A. It went to 1.7 T, exceeding the design magnetic field requirement of 1.6 T. This field is equivalent to that of a 4.25 GeV spectrometer. Meanwhile, the Hall C Short Orbit Spectrometer (SOS) is ready to begin commissioning with beam, including a test of both Hall C spectrometers (SOS and HMS) in coincidence. First physics in Hall A is planned for the second quarter of FY 1996; in Hall B, for the fourth quarter of FY 1996. Bob May News from CERN Manfred Hoefert ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CERN Council, having hesitated for a long time, finally approved the LHC during its December 1994 session. This decision is considered as a victory for High Energy Physics in general, with the tools for experimental physics extending into the next century, and for CERN and its collaborators in particular as it does ensure the pensions of those actually planning the new collider. In fact, it is astonishing and hardly believable to see all those gray or bald-headed persons sitting around tables in meetings being so motivated by a machine they won't even see operating during their active life at CERN. However, this victory is paid for dearly as CERN was authorized in a first phase to build a stripped-down version of the LHC of only 2 x 4 TeV with some magnets missing. This must be accomplished within the operating budget, which moreover will be held constant over the next few years. The immediate consequences of such financial constraints are a continued decrease in staff and more economies. It is sad to see buildings and equipment at CERN deteriorating and so-called young blood being recruited only at a ratio of one new for two old. What is felt mostly is the so-called generation gap: in a few years, when all the old have left, the young remaining staff may still be too inexperienced to fill the gaps, particular at the level of group leaders. The present planning is - miracles are counted on - as follows: the LEP 200 project now has the highest priority at CERN, i.e. optimists hope for the operation of LEP with nearly 100 GeV per beam by the end of 96 using superconducting cavities as the driving force. LEP should be fully exploited at the highest energies for at least four years with the Higgs just around the corner before this machine will be completely dismantled, allowing for the installation of the missing- magnet LHC in the LEP tunnel. That should be finished by the year 2004 and a full LHC version operational by 2008. There is hope that with financial contributions from non-member states notably the US, Canada and Japan the stripped version could be avoided and the construction process for the full LHC could be sped up. As far as RPs daily work is concerned the new year started as usual with the three annuals, namely the shut down of all CERN accelerators, the personnel interviews, and the RP Group's report. All three activities kept the Group rather busy. The new Swiss Ordinance on Radiation Protection based on ICRP 60 having come into force on October 1, 1994, CERN's internal rules laid down in the Radiation Protection Manual had to be adapted. While the text of this internal regulation had already been rewritten last year, the new edition of the Manual was eventually adopted by the CERN Safety Policy Committee in March and the final version submitted to the Host-State authorities for formal approval just before Easter. It came as a surprise that Catherine Vaerman who had joined RP Group only last year and having taken over the Individual Dosimetry and Calibration Section from the retired Christian Raffnsoe decided to leave CERN for very personal reasons by the end of June this year. Although a request for re-recruitment was made immediately there is at present no green light for opening this key post. This news comes at the very moment when calibration of instruments performed periodically at CERN are scrutinized by the Host-State authorities. In addition it was planned to change the 30 year old CERN film holder and to replace it with a new development by PTB, Germany having only a simple filter combination, but perfectly adapted to measure the new ICRU quantity Hp, personal dose equivalent. All this occurs against the background of the new gamma film made by Kodak which has already caused considerable problems in handling and processing for us and also for our French and US colleagues. The start-up of CERN's accelerators in March following their shutdown was overshadowed, but luckily only slightly retarded, by a greatly publicized act of sabotage and the teething troubles of a newly installed access system around the SPS. This new system is based on CERN's universal magnetic instead of the traditional perforated access cards used at the SPS. The wearing of film badges by individuals will be checked at the entrance to hot areas with the help of bar codes glued onto the film holder of the person and read independently. Work for the LHC continues. Graham and his team use FLUKA extensively to determine shielding thickness, levels of induced radioactivity and radiation doses as the machine parameters and the plans for the experiments in particular become frozen. We soon will take up the radiological impact report again and update the existing version that was based on a somewhat more ambitious machine (2 x 7.7 instead of 2 x 7 TeV). We are also planning for the final official run of the CERN-CEC irradiation facility. Again participants from all over Europe and the United States will use this installation for more than a week either personally or by sending passive dosemeters from 21 April to 1 May. In view of the continued interest in this facility a new request for a modest continuation of the programme was submitted to the EU in Brussels. Finally a word about IRPA 9. The Programme Committee has approved the selected topics for the four invited papers to be given in the Mini- Symposium on Radiation Protection at Accelerator Facilities at the Vienna Hofburg on Monday April 15, 1996 from 11:00 to 12:30 hours. The refresher course on Shielding of Accelerator Facilities will take place on Friday April 19, at 7:45 hours!! The speakers announced in the IARPE Newsletter Vol. 3, #5 have been notified. It is now up to them to prepare their communication and up to us to attend the IRPA9 Conference in the Austrian capital on the Danube full of historical landmarks, architectural beauty, music in the air and wine served in the afternoon sun of a spring-flowered garden. The Second Announcement is already out. If you haven't received your copy write to IRPA9 Congress Organising Committee, Austropa-Interconvention, P.O.Box 30, A-1043 Vienna, Austria or ask via E-Mail: . Important deadlines: Abstracts: August 1, 1995, Notification of acceptance: October 1995, Early registration: December 15, 1995, Full papers: January 1, 1996, Hotel reservation: March 1, 1996. Manfred Hoefert, CERN News from CAMD Lorraine Day ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The J. Bennett Johnston Sr. Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices (CAMD) has been in full operation since 1992. The 1.5 GeV synchrotron ring was designed specifically for X-ray Lithography and Micromachining. The three main areas of application are applied engineering and design, research and fabrication of microscopic structures; basic science research of crystal structure and atomic properties of matter. Beamline Descriptions: To date, the facility has constructed 9 beamlines with the following characteristics. Two monochromators have been built with cooperation from the Laboratorio National de Luz Sinchrotron (LNLS, Campinas Brazil). These include the double crystal monochromator with an x-ray range from about 6 A down to the CAMD limit of l < 1A. Toroidal- Grating Monochromator beamline has a range of 10eV to 300 eV. A plane-grating monochromator beamline, with high resolution, has a broad spectral range (from 10eV to >1 KeV). A collaboration between Tulane University, NIST and the University of Tennessee has built a Variable-Line-Space-Grating Monochromator beamline with a unique fluorescence detection system. CAMD has built a white-light beamline in cooperation with Argonne National Lab for materials characteri- zation. An x-ray lithography beamline has been in operation since December, 1992. It can produce over 50 mwatt/cm2 in a 1 cm x 5 cm field and is attached to a stepper which is housed in a 1000 square foot (93 square meter) Class-100 cleanroom. Currently, there are 3 beamlines dedicated to micromachining. Two of these are beamlines for x-rays of several KeV with unique mirror systems, one of which terminates in a commercial stepper. Both beamlines have been installed in collaboration with Louisiana Tech's Institute for Micromachining. The third micromachining beamline, is a 'white' x-ray beamline delivering over 400 mwatt/cm2 in a 1cm x 5 cm field. On-Going and Future Plans: Additional beamlines under construction include a 6 m toroidal-grating monochromator beamline built by the University of Texas and a Spherical-Grating Monochromator jointly owned by the Physics Depart- ments at the Universities of Texas and Tennessee. An additional beamline is currently proposed: a very-high resolution, near-normal incidence monochromator beamline. A second 1500 square foot (140 square meter) cleanroom is currently under construction and everything is being accomplished with a staff of only 23, with a lot of help from undergraduate engineering students at Louisiana State University, of which CAMD is a part. HP News: In health physics, we have trained one master's student (who modeled electron losses from each magnet and their contribution to radiation patterns. A second doctoral candidate is looking at several KeV x-ray dosimetry, specifically using the double-crystal monochromator beamline. For the past two years, no personnel exposures exceeded 100 mRem per annum, and for 1994, did not exceed 30 mRem per annum. News from FERMILAB Dave Boehnlein ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest news from Fermilab is the discovery of the top quark. "Wait a minute," I can hear people saying, "didn't they just discover the top quark last year?" No, not exactly. Last year's announcement detailed the first direct evidence for the existence of the top quark. This evidence, seen by the CDF collider experiment, was inconclusive and had yet to be confirmed by D0, the second collider experiment at Fermilab. This time, I'm happy to say, the evidence is conclusive and the particle has been observed by both experiments. CDF, using an integrated luminosity of 67 inverse picobarns, finds a cross section for t-tbar (a meson composed of a top and anti-top quark) production of 6.8 picobarns and a top quark mass of 176 GeV (I'm using natural units, in which c = 1). D0, with an integrated luminosity of 50 picobarns, measures the t-tbar production cross section at 6.4 picobarns and a top mass of 199 GeV. The measurements of the cross sections and top mass are within each other's errors (statistical + systematic). Both experiments have submitted papers to Physical Review Letters detailing the discovery. Collider run I has been highly successful and will continue into July. At the end of the collider run, construction on an 8 GeV line to the Main Injector will commence, as well as changeover for fixed-target experiments in 1996. In operational news, Fermilab has received a go-ahead to proceed with building a new Low-Level Radioactive Waste Handling Facility. This facility will be used for the sorting and screening of low-level radioactive waste and its preparation for shipment off-site. It represents a significant improvement in operations and will improve the efficiency and safety of handling materials with accelerator- induced radioactivity. The DOE has reviewed our environmental assess- ment and issued a Finding of "No Significant Impact".The 14,200 square foot (1320 square meter) building will be a considerable improvement over the tent in which sorting and screening operations were previously conducted! There is, however, a cautionary tale associated with this project. Fermilab enjoys very good public relations with the surrounding community and, of course, we want to keep it that way. We didn't want the words "...Radioactive Waste...Facility" to conjure images of glowing barrels of radioactive glop in the public mind's eye, so we were careful to make accurate news releases available to the public and the media concerning the type of waste that an accelerator produces and what the radiological hazards are. Overall, this approach worked well and there was little or no adverse publicity. Interestingly, the best and most accurate coverage came from the Kane County Chronicle, a local newspaper whose reporters took the trouble to talk to people at the lab. On the other hand, the much larger Chicago Tribune, usually considered to be a reputable news- paper, ran the headline "FERMILAB TO BUILD TOXIC WASTE STORAGE SITE." This led to some chagrin on our part, since the waste in question is not toxic and is not to be stored here in any case. The moral of the story is that you can't be too careful about getting accurate infor- mation to the press. News from SLAC Vashek Vylet ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NCRP News: The National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements has formed a new scientific committee to draft a report on the radiation protection design of medical radiation therapy facilities. This report will replace the relevant portions of NCRP Report Nos. 49 and 51. It will include recommendations for shielding using different materials; the design of doors, entryways and ducts; and the design of access control and interlock systems. The report will cover the energy range for 0.25 to 50 MeV for x-ray production and its accompanying neutron production. The shielding recommendations are expected to incorporate new information about the photon and neutron leakage, energy and angular distributions, from the heads of modern medical electron accelerators; information from new calculations and measurements of photon and neutron transmission through various shielding materials and combinations; and new information on use factors and workloads. The committee activities will be supported in part by the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, without which this activity would probably not take place. The committee chair is James Deye and the other committee members are: Jeffery Kleck, Raymond Wu, James Rodgers, Patton McGinley, Peter Biggs and Richard McCall. The committee will function under the auspices of the Scientific Committee 46 on Operational Radiation Safety as SC 46-13. Kenneth Kase Scientific Vice President for Operational Radiation Safety Chairman, SC 46 News from TRIUMF Lutz Moritz ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TRIUMF continues in a state of suspended animation while we wait for clarification of our future funding. The fiscal year started April 1, and at this time (April 20) there is still no clear indication of what this year's budget will be. Needless to say the mood is very tense and everyone is bracing for more bad news. Nevertheless we have been working to get all the licensing approvals for our proton therapy facility and it now looks as if we might treat our first patient sometime towards the end of May. It is also the time for year-end reports to the regulatory authorities and we have been in the happy position to be able to report a steady decrease in the collective dose over the past few years despite the fact that beam production on the 500 MeV cyclotron has been steady and radioisotope production from the small cyclotrons has almost tripled during the same period. Last week we had a small fire in one of our radioisotope production hot cells during the processing of a Rb target (to extract Sr-82). The fire was quickly extinguished using the in-cell fire suppression system, but not before some equipment in the cell had been damaged. The cause of the fire is still under investigation, but the current theory is that the processing technician accidentally substituted acetone for butanol during the dissolution of the Rb. The butanol is normally heated to 55 C during the process a temperature which happens to be the flash point for acetone. In any case no radioactivity was released to the outside world. Almost a year ago I promised that anyone interested in the paper on application of Geographical Information System software to accelerator radiation protection would be able to access this via the World Wide Web. I was recently reminded of that promise and so now anyone still interested may find the paper at http://www.triumf.ca/safety/igor/gis.html Due to fiscal constraints and a shortage of people-power there have been no new developments in this direction. However we have also put the TRIUMF Safety Manual in the form of a series of `Safety Notes' on the World Wide Web and it is accessible via the TRIUMF Home Page under `Safety Group'. Comments are welcome. FROM THE MEMBERSHIP ====================================================================== Wes Dunn ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Progress is again on the agenda for the revision to the CRCPD (Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors) non-medical accelerator regulations (Suggested State Regulations Part I). Revisions are generally concentrating on PET facilities and interlock requirements. I hope to have the revisions to the CRCPD board this summer so that the draft rule can go out for comment late summer or early fall. Please let me know if you wish to be on the "commenters" list. (note new e-mail address: wdunn@brc1.tdh.state.tx.us) Note that this committee also deals with analytical x-ray regulations (Part H) and expects to submit a revised Part H at the same time. So also let me know if you are interested in receiving the draft x-ray rules. Wes ********************************************* Wesley M. Dunn, Chair, CRCPD SR-3 Committee (and Texas Bureau of Radiation Control) ********************************************* CLOSING THOUGHTS ====================================================================== The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. -- Niels Bohr