NukeWorker Forum
News and Discussions => History & Trivia => Topic started by: wlrun3@aol.com on Sep 02, 2007, 07:54
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What are the circumstances behind the origin of the phrase "piggy back beta"?
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departmental management explanation for alpha contamination in a commercial nuclear power plant in the late 70-early 80s.
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I also heard it referred to at "coincidental beta" and once, even "Co-Temporal Beta".....that one had a nice poetic ring to it.
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good old C Y. :). Lots of alpha not a little.
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departmental management explanation for alpha contamination in a commercial nuclear power plant in the late 70-early 80s.
Can you remember where and how the term was first used.
Thankyou for the reply.
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izziss idol curiosity or a test? dang, itz a freeking halliday 'n yinz want me two tink?
persunnully, eye wuzzant at da site uv origin. da phurst time dat eye remember (operative word, remember) piggyback beta being used ('n inna humorus weigh) wuz atta outage at da peach, 'n i yam tinking it wuz da fall uv 79, butt it cooda been at da spring 80 two.
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its a CY thang i think.... denial of the fact that SS fuel clading was a big boondoggle - thats a Westinghouse/Cy thang..
surely that is still not going around.. anybody would know to look at the gamma spect, do some delay/decay counting, look at the part 61 analysis and go from there..
Its one thing to snow job the techs, its another to snow job your offsite disposal facility. Historically, all those companies that had PB Beta had fuel "stuff" identified in their part 61 analysis. So, why was the connection not made?? Denial, keep it quiet, avoid MPC calculations (predac), speed up sample count times, lower respiratory requirements- lots of financial incentive to invent PB Beta. A feather curve would tell you a lot of things.....
then there is the "bowled over gamma" invented by .........
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I was at Calvert Cliffs during the 'Piggy-back beta' uhhhhh... phenomenon. One calibrated absorber kit was all I needed to prove it was alpha when we found it. Fortunately it was on the PaR machine that had just come from another facility that will remain unnamed.
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Historically, all those companies that had PB Beta had fuel "stuff" identified in their part 61 analysis. So, why was the connection not made??
Part 61 came in around the end of '83 (I think). Prior to that, most of the waste manifests said something like "MFP" for mixed fission products. PB beta reigned in the late 70s/earlier 80s.
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then there is the "bowled over gamma" invented by .........
roflmao!!! itz bin a long, long time since eye hadda pleasure uv witnessing a bowling ball theory of alpha produckshun. oh mi garsh.......... roflmao, agin!
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That reminds me of my days at Chem Nuclear, MFP and DAW were the stars of the day back then. ;)
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I can remember the term used at the N Reactor, Hanford in the late seventies...
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now that i took some redbull.. i think even 'bama talked about it way back when prior to part 61, cy, ccnp etc...that would be the 60's or so..
a mist cleared and before him stood a figure from his early past, not unlike those that had come before.... so is the infamous bowled over gamma dude among us today.... could be... he is closer than u think....maybe with us now
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Yep, it was CY in late 70's early 80's. spread all over to other places
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Yep CY had fuel cladding failure and they did not want to accept that they had alpha contamination as a result. The theory was that the detector was being fooled by co-incident or simultaneous betas entering the detector and being counted as an alpha, hence the term piggy-back beta. An Alpha spectrometer was used by CY to determine that in fact they were dealing with alpha. An other resulting problem from the fuel pellets in the systems was high beta dose rates. For eye protection a second respirator lens was taped over the existing lens. Dose rates of 20mrad were common at the refueling bridge railing during that and subsequent outages.
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I first heard of it at CY but we knew better....
nearly eighteen years later after CY , I get a chance to read an INPO document that has the Iodine concentration at shutdown for CY (1989) somewhere at 10 + 2 umci/ml, that seems like the water would be awfully thick. (talk about timeliness for info for the techs)
I believe the first a/s inside the bowl of a s/g had the charcoal at 80 mr,
( i'm sure you rocky flats boy's have better stories)
It was a labor day weekend and they kept the plant up for a couple extra days to complete a record run, to be followed by a lengthy shutdown.
I guess the FME programs nowadays seems to help.......
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Don't know when it started, but I owned the shirt. I thought it was a cool thing to wear back in my wild single days, only trouble is I wore the dang thing to Henry's parents home once. My poor mother in law didn't say a word. I don't know to this day whether she was struck dumb or too much of a lady to mention I had two pigs "makin bacon" on my shirt. LOL
Now that ya'll all made me feel old as the hills, I'm signing off - can you believe it been almost 30 years since that time?
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departmental management explanation for alpha contamination in a commercial nuclear power plant in the late 70-early 80s.
First heard the term from Victor Anderson (RIP) at CY spring 1980 outage. He was also the source of the letter to the NRC on the subject and the Piggyback beta T Shirt (making Bacon) all that outage. dropping an air sample particulate filter over a 40mR/hr wipe dropped the Alpha count from 9000 cpm to 2 cpm.