INTERNATIONAL ACCELERATOR RADIOLOGICAL PROTECTION (IARPE) NEWSLETTER "The Official Publication of the Accelerator Section of the Health Physics Society" ====================================================================== August - September 1992 Vol.1 #8 ====================================================================== OFFICERS ====================================================================== President: Ralph Thomas LLNL Past President: Wade Patterson LLNL President-Elect: Geoff Stapleton SSCL Secretary/Treasurer:Nisy Ipe SLAC Directors (1 Year): Frank Masse' Paul Neeson Directors (2 Year): Gerald Fallon Paula Trinowski Directors (3 Year): Carter Ficklen CEBAF Jerry Miller LANL FROM THE EDITOR ====================================================================== Thanks to each of you who contributed to the August - September Newsletter. Your feedback on the Newsletter content and format is always welcome as are your contributions to the content. As you can see from this issue, we need your help in locating "feature article" contributors. Due to summer schedules, we do not have a feature article for this newsletter and so we have chosen to combine the August and September issues. Bob May, Acting Editor MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT ===================================================================== 23, August 1992 Dear Colleagues, My Hopes for the Accelerator Section During 1992-1993. As Wade Patterson told you in last month's Newletter our first year was extremely successful. It will be a challenge to maintain our momentum but it is my firm intention to try. These are my specific goals for the coming year: 1) Double our dues-paying membership.(Each one of you-please enroll another member- it's as simple as that!). 2) Make arrangements for IRPA (non-HPS members) to join the Section. (These arrangements are being negotiated now-if you know of an interested overseas colleague please put her/him in touch with Nisy Ipe,our Secretary, or any other Board Member). 3) Prepare for our second scientific session in Atlanta. Geoff Stapleton, as President-Elect ,is doing this. Please submit papers as soon as the call goes out. We want to do even better than we did in Columbus. 4) Lay the foundations for Accelerator Health Physics to be recognized at the 1996 IRPA meeting in Vienna by a formal session devoted to our discipline. Nisy Ipe did some ground-work in Montreal directed to this goal and Dr. Manfred Hoeffert of CERN has expressed interest in working with us in this effort. 5) Prepare an Accelerator Section Directory. Harry Howe (LLNL) has kindly volunteered to do this. It should be ready by the end of the year. 6) Arrange for a smooth continuation of production of our "Newsletter" created by Nisy Ipe. Any volunteers? 7) Begin preparations for a special meeting of the Section in Berkeley-"the birthplace of the cyclotron"- during the 1994 San Francisco meeting. I hope you agree with me that these are exciting goals. I will need your help in achieving them and look forward to working with you before passing the torch on to Geoff Stapleton next year (and - to Univerity of California alumni -GO BEARS!) Ralph H. Thomas. President, Accelerator Section Health Physics Society NEWS FROM ACCELERATOR SECTION CORRESPONDENTS ====================================================================== News from LAMPF (Sara Hoover ) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LAMPF operations have been extended about a month until 28 October. This long operating period will permit numerous projects to continue. In addition, starting 1 October, an important experiment involving research into the Accelerator Production of Tritium will begin at the Weapons Neutron Resarach (WNR) facility. Region 6 of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been conducting an audit of the LANL Radioactive Air Emissions Program during the week of 24 August. Because of LAMPF's radioactive air production, it is receiving a significan level of interest from the EPA who is currently visiting LANL as part of developing a Federal Facilities Compliance Agreement with the Laboratory. News from DESY (Herbert Dinter ) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Since May 1992 the e-p-storage ring HERA is in operation. The detectors for high energy particles (H1 and ZEUS) take data and presented already the first results. The design energies of the circulating particles, 26 GeV for electrons and 820 GeV for protons, are reached and the intensities of both beams could be increased since May by a factor of 10. Nevertheless, they are still a factor of 20 below their design values. The measured dose levels in the experimental halls are low and up to now there is no need to define any "radiation controlled area" there. Our monitor system consists of active counters (ionisation chambers and Anderson-Braun-type counters) as well as passive detectors (moderated 6LiF/7LiF TLD and 232Th-fission products/Polycarbonate detectors). The calibration was performed by measurements of fluence spectra behind shielding using a set of Bonner spheres together with Polycarbonate detectors. News from TRIUMF (Lutz Moritz ) --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Canadian government has now recognized the KAON proposal as a national effort and at present has a negotiating team making the rounds of foreign partners to finalize the agreements for financial support. Previously agreements had been negotiated with the province of British Columbia. The Canadians are somewhat worried that foreign participation will take the form of supplying high technology equipment leaving the Canadians only the civil engineering, i.e. digging the tunnels. This would obviously remove the incentive of the promised technological spin-offs for local industry. So we continue to wait and hold our breath although some (an even dozen at last count) have stopped waiting and have moved on to bigger things in Texas. TRIUMF beam schedule has now entered a five week run with polarized protons at a much reduced intensity (2 microamperes) in preparation for our September shutdown. One major job will be to dismantle the pion therapy channel and replace the heavy concrete shielding blocks which support the magnets. The blocks were made with a locally supplied aggregate containing iron compounds that oxidize when they get wet. Chronic cooling water leaks have caused the shielding blocks to swell and crack. In some cases the dimensions of the blocks have increased by as much as 1 cm causing alignment problems with the pion channel components. The other major tasks have to do with testing equipment in the 500 MeV cyclotron intended for extracting an H-minus ion beam. A series of devices including RF booster cavities, RF and DC deflectors and both electrostatic and magnetic septa will extract the H-minus beam with high efficiency. The H-minus beam will then be stripped of its electrons during injection into the booster synchrotron for the KAON factory. The 'Alternate Extraction System' study and development was funded under the original KAON preliminary design study. Radiation Safety staff is being kept busy preparing the documentation for the renewal of the TRIUMF operating licence which expires at the end of the year. An issue unrelated to radiation protection but certainly important for the protection of personnel surfaced here again during a recent experimental run. An experiment required the use of a pressurized target vessel operating at approximately 800 degrees Celsius with a pressure of 20 atmospheres. The fill gas was methane or other flammable gases. The vessel also had a thin window (made of INCONEL) to allow entry of a muon beam. The dimensions of the vessel were sufficiently small that it fell outside the regulations governing 'pressure vessels' and there ensued a rather heated debate between experimenters and site engineers as to the process to be used for approving the use of such a vessel and what codes, if any, ought to be used in its construction. I would be interested to hear how the safety analysis and approval for this type of apparatus are handled at other laboratories. In particular, are all engineering and regulatory codes always adhered to when building apparatus for experiments and how are the exceptions handled and approved. News From CEBAF (Bob May ) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- First CEBAF Linac Test Under Way On 17 August 1992, low-power testing was initiated in a partial configuration of the CEBAF north linac, the first of two interconnected linacs in the superconducting, recirculating accelerator. This milestone marks the first linac operation at CEBAF, where operation of the 45 MeV superconducting injector has validated system design (as reported earlier). This initial north linac configuration includes 12 of an eventual 20 cryomodules, adding 96 cavities---at four cavity pairs per cryomodule---to the 18 cavities in the 2.25-cryomodule injector for a nominal energy capability of 285 MeV. The tests, which will not exceed 17 kW average beam power, are expected to provide crucial information on simultaneous operation of large numbers of cavities and to verify linac beam transport and control capabilities. High-average-power operation is slated for subsequent tests, commencing in November. News from SLAC (Mike Grissom ) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The following positions are currently available at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025. The Personnel Office may be contacted at (415) 926-2353. Job Title: Facility Engineering/Coordinator Duties: As part of the Environment, Safety & Health Division (ESH) responsible for planning, documenting & implementing laboratory wide environment, safety & health oversight program & quality assurance program. This includes performing audits of programs & facilities to verify compliance to ES&H & quality assurance requirements to assure personnel & facility safety. As needed, will accompany auditors or coordinate teams of outside experts in audits of SLAC facilities. Will specialize in the area of radiation protection & radiological materials. Will analyze & determine root cause of ES&H & QA problems & recommend appropriate remedial actions; write reports; prepare management presentations describing these activities; write QA procedures & plans for the program. Will audit various health physics activities throughout SLAC. SKILLS/EXPERIENCE: BS degree in health physics or equivalent training required. Minimum of 3-5 years experience in radiation protection in a Department of Energy environment & associated regulatory requirements preferred. Familiarity with MacIntosh or IBM PC applications such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel or equivalent required. Excellent verbal & written communication skills required. Knowledge of health physics requirements necessary. Send resume for job # 16039. Job Title: Health Physicist Duties: Responsible as the Group Leader for operation & management of the Dosimetry & Training Group. Provide all of SLAC's personnel dosimetry services & worker training to include annual, visitor & radiation worker categories. Provide detailed radiation dosimetry consultative advice to radiation protection personnel & laboratory research staff. Manage the historical manual & new automated dosimetry systems. Assist with training of radiation workers & development of all radiation safety programs & training for the site. Responsible for dosimetry test calibrations & special dosimetry projects. Serve as a member of SLAC's ALARA committee. Responsible on a daily basis for providing dosimetry reports to DOE. Primary responsibility for qualification and retention of SLAC's dosimetry systems in compliance with DOELAP requirements. Develop DOE lab accreditation program for personnel dosimetry accreditation. SKILLS/EXPERIENCE: Training at the MS level or higher in health physics or related engineering or physical science program with some coursework in health physics with at least 5 years of operational health physics experience in dosimetry systems or at the BS level in above disciplines & 10 years of operational health physics experience or equivalent. Must be able to supervise technical dosimetry program staff. Must have sufficient understanding of underlying principles of radiation dosimetry to participate in special dosimetry studies. Must be willing & able to perform some routine technician functions. Limited opportunities for original research may occur. Should be computer literate & must be willing to learn the SLAC computer system. Must have good communication skills, written & oral. Send resume for job # 14336.