Engineering topics
Nortier, F. M.
Publications and source records attributed to Nortier, F. M..
Recommended Nuclear Data for the Production of Selected Therapeutic Radionuclides
Increasing interest in the treatment of human disease by means of targeted radionuclide-based therapies requires an accurate understanding of achievable yields and quantification of realisable degrees of purity. Important studies within a more extensive Coordinated Research Project of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA CRP) have included in-depth assessments and evaluations of all available measured cross-section data for ten nuclear reactions leading to the formation of 131 Cs, 131 Ba, 225 Ac, 225 Ra, 227 Th, 227 Ac, 230 U and 230 Pa for various on-going and proposed therapeutic applications in nuclear medicine. Equivalent studies were also undertaken of possible reactions to produce the 178W /low-spin 178m Ta generator system that has been clinically applied in diagnosis by means of SPECT - these particular cross-section studies and recommendations are included in this paper for completeness. All available measured data have been critically reviewed and assessed to produce statistically consistent datasets. Selected datasets have been fitted by a least-squares method with Padé approximations of variable order to evaluate the production cross sections and corresponding uncertainties. New measurements have been made in some instances, and reported data have been adjusted to accommodate new nuclear decay or monitor reaction data which altered the original reported quantities adversely. Insufficient measured data are available in many cases to permit a reliable evaluation of cross sections, and these instances are discussed. Finally, recommended therapeutic radionuclide production reaction data and their uncertainties are available on the Web page of the IAEA Nuclear Data Section at www-nds.iaea.org/radionuclides/ and also at the IAEA medical portal www-nds.iaea.org/medportal/.
Recommended nuclear data for medical radioisotope production: diagnostic positron emitters
An IAEA coordinated research project that began in 2012 and ended in 2016 was primarily dedicated to the compilation, evaluation and recommendation of cross-section data for the production of medical radionuclides. One significant part of this work focused on diagnostic positron emitters. These particular studies consist of 69 reactions for direct and indirect or generator production of 44 Sc( 44 Ti), 52 mMn( 52 Fe), 52 gMn, 55 Co, 61 Cu, 62 Cu( 62 Zn), 66 Ga, 68 Ga( 68 Ge), 72 As( 72 Se), 73 Se, 76 Br, 82 Rb( 82 Sr), 82 mRb, 86 Y, 89 Zr, 90 Nb, 94 mTc, 110 mIn( 110 Sn), 118 Sb( 118 Te), 120 I, 122 I( 122 Xe), 128 Cs( 128 Ba), and 140 Pr( 140 Nd) medical radionuclides. The resulting reference cross-section data were obtained from Padé fits to selected and corrected experimental data, and integral thick target yields were subsequently deduced. Uncertainties in the fitted results were estimated via a Padé least-squares method with the addition of a 4% assessed systematic uncertainty. Experimental data were also compared with theoretical predictions available from the TENDL-2015 and TENDL-2017 libraries.
Recommended nuclear data for medical radioisotope production: diagnostic gamma emitters
An extensive series of evaluations have been performed as part of an IAEA coordinated research project to study a set of nuclear reactions that produce the diagnostic gamma-ray emitting radionuclides Cr- 51 , Tc- 99m , In- 111 , I-123 and Tl- 201 . Recommended cross-section data in the form of excitation functions have been derived, along with quantifications of their uncertainties. These evaluations compiled the compilation of all previously published values and newly measured experimental data, followed by critical assessments and selection of those experimental datasets and accompanying uncertainties judged to be fully valid and statistically consistent for model-independent least-squares fitting by means of Pade approximations. Integral yields as a function of the energy were also calculated on the basis of the recommended cross sections deduced from these various fits. All evaluated numerical conclusions and their corresponding uncertainties are available online at www-nds.iaea.org/medical/gamma_emitters.html and also on the medical portal of the International Atomic Energy Agency/Nuclear Data Section (IAEA-NDS) www-nds.iaea.org/medportal
Two-way multi-physics coupling for modeling high power RbCl isotope production targets
Not Available
Reference Cross Sections for Charged-particle Monitor Reactions
Evaluated cross sections of beam-monitor reactions are expected to become the de-facto standard for cross-section measurements that are performed over a very broad energy range in accelerators in order to produce particular radionuclides for industrial and medical applications. The requirements for such data need to be addressed in a timely manner, and therefore an IAEA coordinated research project was launched in December 2012 to establish or improve the nuclear data required to characterise charged-particle monitor reactions. An international team was assembled to recommend more accurate cross-section data over a wide range of targets and projectiles, undertaken in conjunction with a limited number of measurements and more extensive evaluations of the decay data of specific radionuclides. Least-square evaluations of monitor-reaction cross sections including uncertainty quantification have been undertaken for charged-particle beams of protons, deuterons, 3 He- and 4 He-particles. In conclusion, recommended beam monitor reaction data with their uncertainties are available at the IAEA-NDS medical portal www-nds.iaea.org/medical/monitor_reactions.html.
Multi-Physics Coupling to Model a RbCl-RbCl-Ga Target Stack
A computational model has been developed to simulate the performance of the Los Alamos Isotope Production Facility's (IPF) routine production target configuration, which consists of two Inconel-encapsulated RbCl salt targets and one niobium-encapsulated gallium target separated by water cooling channels. The methodology involves iteratively coupling particle transport and thermal hydraulic codes to determine the time dependent behavior of the target. Phase and density changes seen in targets are known to impact beam penetration and distribution. In addition, evidence of energy distributions seen in experimental radionuclide yield measurements at IPF do not match those seen in previous MCNP predictions. Density reduction as a result of heat deposition affects proton energy loss along the particle's track, impacting both radionuclide yields and target design. Accurate modeling of the thermal behavior of these multi-phase targets and the corresponding impact on beam behavior will significantly improve our understanding of incident and exit proton energy distributions and resulting radionuclide yields in downstream targets. Thermal hydraulic modeling, including computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and heat transfer, was performed with ANSYS CFX while particle transport was performed with the Monte Carlo N-Particle code (MCNP). (authors)