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Title: Overview of the nuclear data related to the Hiroshima Dosimetry Discrepancy

Conference ·
OSTI ID:10185301

Nearly half a century ago the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima; several days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Japan immediately initiated a study of all aspects of the effects of the bombings. Thus the initial effort was begun to estimate the overall risks of radiation effects in man due to nuclear detonations. By the 1950s, Japan and the United States had produced several studies that reported on the elevated risk of cancer. In 1957 the first dose estimates for survivors were designated as Tentative 1957 Doses or T57D. In 1965 a revised dosimetry system was adopted to replace T57D, and the dose estimates were designated as Tentative 1965 Doses or T65D. The current evaluation, known as Dosimetry System 1986 or DS86, was the result of a presentation by H.H. Rossi in 1976 to the US National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP). In the presentation, Rossi recommended that the NCRP reduce its permissible neutron dose limits by an order of magnitude. A direct result of this drastic proposal was a new dosimetry reevaluation effort. After the calculations were made and compared to the measurements, it was found that the thermal data at both cities was in disagreement. The state-of-the-art radiation transport calculational codes require evaluated neutron and gamma-ray reaction cross-section data (which themselves were determined empirically or theoretically) to complete the cycle and calculate the measured data. This paper will review some of the more important in situ measured data taken over the last forty-five years, the measurement and reevaluation of some of the major cross sections required for the calculations, and the effort to agreement through calculations with some of the in situ measurements.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE, Washington, DC (United States); Department of Defense, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
AC05-84OR21400
OSTI ID:
10185301
Report Number(s):
CONF-940507-39; ON: DE94019334; TRN: 94:020208
Resource Relation:
Conference: International conference on nuclear data for science and technology: nuclear data for the twenty-first century,Gatlinburg, TN (United States),9-13 May 1994; Other Information: PBD: [1994]
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English