- Industry: Government
- Number of terms: 11131
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- Company Profile:
The process by which the NRC monitors and evaluates the performance of commercial nuclear power plants. Designed to focus on those plant activities that are most important to safety, the process uses inspection findings and performance indicators to assess each plant’s safety performance.
Industry:Energy
The central portion of a nuclear reactor, which contains the fuel assemblies, moderator, neutron poisons, control rods, and support structures. The reactor core is where fission takes place.
Industry:Energy
The system used to remove energy from the reactor core and transfer that energy either directly or indirectly to the steam turbine.
Industry:Energy
An unstable isotope of an element that decays or disintegrates spontaneously, thereby emitting radiation. Approximately 5,000 natural and artificial radioisotopes have been identified.
Industry:Energy
The time required for half the atoms of a particular radioisotope to decay into another isotope. A specific half-life is a characteristic property of each radioisotope. Measured half-lives range from millionths of a second to billions of years, depending on the stability of the nucleus. Radiological half-life is related to, but different from, the biological half-life and the effective half-life.
Industry:Energy
A radioactive element that is one of the heaviest gases known. Its atomic number is 86. It is a daughter of radium.
Industry:Energy
A radioactive metallic element with atomic number 88. As found in nature, the most common isotope has a mass number of 226. It occurs in minute quantities associated with uranium in pitchblende, camotite, and other minerals.
Industry:Energy
The relative susceptibility of cells, tissues, organs, organisms, or other substances to the injurious action of radiation.
Industry:Energy
The therapeutic use of ionizing radiation to treat disease in patients. Although most radiotherapy procedures are intended to kill cancerous tissue or reduce the size of a tumor, therapeutic doses may also be used to reduce pain or treat benign conditions. For example, intervascular brachytherapy uses radiation to treat clogged blood vessels. Other common radiotherapy procedures include gamma stereotactic radiosurgery (gamma knife), teletherapy, and iodine treatment to correct an overactive thyroid gland. These procedures use radiation sources, regulated by the NRC and its Agreement States, that may be applied either inside or outside the body. In either case, the goal of radiotherapy is to deliver the required therapeutic or pain-relieving dose of radiation with high precision and for the required length of time, while preserving the surrounding healthy tissue.
Industry:Energy
