Norman Rasmussen

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Norman Rasmussen

Norman Carl Rasmussen (born November 12, 1927 in Harrisburg , † July 18, 2003 in Concord ) was an American nuclear physicist and nuclear technician.

Life

Rasmussen grew up on a farm and went to school in Gettysburg . After serving in the US Navy in 1945/46, he studied physics at Gettysburg College and from 1950 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , where he received his doctorate in 1956 under Robley D. Evans ( Standardization of electron capture isotopes ), instructor and from 1958 professor . There he stayed for the rest of his career in the nuclear engineering department, which was built around a newly established research reactor at MIT in the mid-1950s. From 1975 to 1981 he headed the department. In 1983 he became McAfee Professor of Nuclear Engineering . In 1994 he retired. He died of complications from Parkinson's disease .

In 1985 he received the Enrico Fermi Prize for his studies on reactor safety. He was a member of the National Academy of Engineering (since 1978), the National Academy of Sciences (since 1979) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (since 1981). From 1982 to 1987 he served on the National Science Board under President Ronald Reagan . 1974 to 1978 he was on the Defense Science Board .

He had been married to Thalia Tichenor since 1952 and had a son and a daughter. In his spare time he was engaged in woodwork and was an amateur ornithologist .

plant

Rasmussen initially dealt with gamma ray spectroscopy, where he was involved in the development of spectrometers and detectors at MIT, measured decay spectra and determined material compositions with the gamma spectrum, especially of spent nuclear fuel rods. His methods were used both in the US nuclear weapons program and at the IAEA . In the 1950s and 1960s, he also studied the radiation dose rates given to participants in U.S. atomic bomb tests.

Rasmussen Report

Rasmussen was the head of the Atomic Energy Commission's (AEC) influential 1975 nuclear reactor safety study (WASH 1400, Rasmussen Report , RSS). For the first time in nuclear technology, he introduced new probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) procedures. They came to the conclusion (especially in the executive summary that summarized the 3300 page, 14 volume report) that nuclear power risks were very low - especially when comparing the risk for individual citizens with the likelihood of being hit by a meteorite, remained stuck in public. The conclusions led to criticism from the scientific side when they were published. Expressed for example by Frank von Hippel in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientist in February 1977 ( Looking back on the Rasmussen Report ), by the Union of Concerned Scientists , by a separate commission of the American Physical Society under Harold Lewis and a commission by Lewis on behalf of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). According to this Lewis Report , the NRC in 1979 distanced itself from the values ​​of the risk assessments and the Executive Summary of the Rasmussen Report. The Rasmussen Report and its methods served as a model for further studies in the nuclear industry, for example the German Nuclear Power Plant Risk Study (DRS) of the Society for Reactor Safety (GRS) (1979, 1989). In the USA, the Rasmussen Report was replaced by improved studies by the NRC.

Rasmussen was also in the media as a reactor safety expert, for example in a television debate with consumer advocate and critic of the RSS Ralph Nader in 1975.

Web links

  • Kent F. Hansen: Norman Carl Rasmussen 1927-2003 . In: National Academy of Sciences (Ed.): Biographical Memoirs . tape 86 , 2005 (English, nasonline.org [PDF]).
  • Norman C. Rasmussen. In: Physics History Network. AIP(English).;
  • Robert J. Sales: MIT Prof. Norman Rasmussen dies at the 75th MIT News Office, July 25, 2003 .;

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Enrico Fermi Award: 1985 Norman Rasmussen. doe.gov, accessed on October 19, 2018 (English, In recognition of his pioneering contributions to nuclear energy in the development of probabilistic risk assessment techniques that have provided new insights and led to new developments in nuclear power plant safety. ).
  2. ↑ The preliminary report appeared in August 1974. Over 60 experts had worked on it for two years. There was already a study on this topic in 1957, WASH 740.
  3. ↑ Reactor Safety Study - An Assessment of Accident Risks in US Commercial Nuclear Power Plants , WASH-1400-MR (NUREG-75/014). United States Nuclear Safety Commission, Washington DC 1975. Web link to Executive Summary . The later name of the study, initially known as WASH 1400, was NUREG-75/014
  4. ↑ They estimated the probability of a GAU at once in 17000 years of operation with a maximum of 3400 victims each time
  5. ↑ Lewis et al. a. Report to the APS by the Study Group on Light Water Reactor Safety , Reviews of Modern Physics, Volume 47, 1975, Suppl. 1
  6. ↑ Lewis et al. a. Risk Assessment Review Group Report to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission , NUREG-CR / 0400, Washington DC, NRC, 1978
  7. ^ Withdrawal from the Rasmussen Report , Zeit Online, 1979
  8. ↑ NUREG-1150 from 1991 and the State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analyzes (SOARCA) project
  9. ↑ Der Spiegel 1977, among other things, on Nader's criticism of the Rasmussen Report
personal data
SURNAME Rasmussen, Norman
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rasmussen, Norman Carl (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American nuclear physicist and technician
DATE OF BIRTH November 12, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Harrisburg
DATE OF DEATH July 18, 2003
Place of death Concord