Engineering Commons^™

Nuclear Thermal Rocket Engine Instrumentation Addressing Environmental Limitations On Temperature Measurements, Dan C Floyd

Doctoral Dissertations

The development of nuclear thermal rockets has received renewed interest in recent years due to the benefits that can attained from this method of propulsion. Currently, instrumentation work is focused on the evaluation of current and near-term technology for implementation within a nuclear thermal rocket engine. One aspect of this evaluation is focused on the various instrumentation requirements of the system regarding necessary measurement parameters and environmental conditions for survivability. Historical nuclear rocket programs that have been conducted in the United States provide the basis for this information and indicates a critical need for high temperature measurement technology that can …

Development Of A Low-Dose Radiation Therapy Device For Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, Thomas Heath Davis

Doctoral Dissertations

This research focuses on developing a low-dose radiotherapy (LD-RT) device for treating acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). This respiratory illness affects millions of people a year. Using orthovoltage (200 – 500 keV) X-ray energy provides many advantages over traditional radiotherapy delivery with linear accelerators, such as low cost and greater accessibility. In addition, X-ray tubes have been shown throughout history to provide good treatment outcomes for pneumonia, and research has shown LD-RT to be just as effective with ARDS. This proposal summarizes my efforts in determining the dosimetric properties of an LD-RT system to deliver treatment quickly and effectively. My …

Drone Detection Using Yolov5, Burchan Aydin, Subroto Singha

Faculty Publications

The rapidly increasing number of drones in the national airspace, including those for recreational and commercial applications, has raised concerns regarding misuse. Autonomous drone detection systems offer a probable solution to overcoming the issue of potential drone misuse, such as drug smuggling, violating people’s privacy, etc. Detecting drones can be difficult, due to similar objects in the sky, such as airplanes and birds. In addition, automated drone detection systems need to be trained with ample amounts of data to provide high accuracy. Real-time detection is also necessary, but this requires highly configured devices such as a graphical processing unit (GPU). …

Development Of A Low-Dose Radiation Therapy Device For Acute Respritory Distress Syndrome, Thomas Heath Davis

Masters Theses

This research focuses on the development of a low dose radiotherapy (LD-RT) device for treatment of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a respiratory illness that affects millions of people a year. The use of orthovoltage (200 – 500 keV) X-ray energy provides many advantages over traditional radiotherapy delivery with linear accelerators, such as low cost and greater accessibility. In addition, X-ray tubes have been shown throughout history to provide good treatment outcomes for pneumonia, and research has shown LD-RT to be just as effective with ARDS. This proposal summarizes my efforts in determining the dosimetric properties of a LD-RT system …

Computational Models To Detect Radiation In Urban Environments: An Application Of Signal Processing Techniques And Neural Networks To Radiation Data Analysis, Jose Nicolas Gachancipa

Beyond: Undergraduate Research Journal

Radioactive sources, such as uranium-235, are nuclides that emit ionizing radiation, and which can be used to build nuclear weapons. In public areas, the presence of a radioactive nuclide can present a risk to the population, and therefore, it is imperative that threats are identified by radiological search and response teams in a timely and effective manner. In urban environments, such as densely populated cities, radioactive sources may be more difficult to detect, since background radiation produced by surrounding objects and structures (e.g., buildings, cars) can hinder the effective detection of unnatural radioactive material. This article presents a computational model …

An Exploration Of The Optical Detection Of Ionizing Radiation Utilizing Modern Optics Technology, Sean D. Fournier, Adam Hecht, Cassiano De Oliveira, Jeffrey B. Martin, Richard K. Harrison, Charles Potter

Nuclear Engineering ETDs

Modern ultraviolet (UV) cameras, when combined with UV-transmitting lenses/filter arrangements, can be used to detect radiation dose in air. Ionizing radiation excites nitrogen molecules in ambient air, the resulting decay includes weak emission of ultraviolet photons. Previous work has proven this phenomenon is detectable using highly-sensitive electronically cooled cameras traditionally used in astronomy for low-background imaging. While the ability to detect the presence of radiation (i.e. qualitative measurement) has been demonstrated at Sandia National Laboratories, there are several challenges in correlating images to known dose-fields (quantitative measurement). These challenges include: a low signal to background ratio, interferences due to electronic …

An Ionization Chamber For High Resolution Fission Product Spectroscopy, James Cole

Nuclear Engineering ETDs

The fission process has played a vital role in the world’s search for effective sources of alternative energy. With almost 80 years of work with fissionable material there is still much that is unknown about the process. Fission fragment mass and atomic number distributions are still lacking in completeness and critical detail. Knowledge of this information is highly sought after in the effort to improve various fields of nuclear physics and engineering such as reactor design, predictive models, waste disposal methods, and an overall understanding of the fission process. In an effort to better understand this process, we have developed …

Development And Implementation Of Post Graduate Nuclear Engineering Education In Nigeria, Ayoade Kuye, Franklin Osaisai

International Journal of Nuclear Security

Nigeria has abundant energy resources that include natural gas, large hydro, coal, nuclear, small hydro, solar (PV and PT), and wind. However, the country's per capita electricity consumption is lower than the African continent’s average. Therefore, there is a need for the diversification of the electricity supply in Nigeria. The government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has acknowledged that nuclear energy would play a significant role in enhancing the per capita electricity generation. Consequently, the Nigeria Atomic Energy Commission (NAEC), as the national focal agency for developing and harnessing peaceful uses of nuclear energy in Nigeria, developed a strategic …

Semi-Implicit Direct Kinetics Methodology For Deterministic, Time-Dependent, Three-Dimensional, And Fine-Energy Neutron Transport Solutions, James Ernest Banfield

Doctoral Dissertations

Using a semi-implicit direct kinetics (SIDK) method that is developed in this dissertation, a finer neutron energy discretization and improved fidelity for transient radiation transport calculations are facilitated to reduce uncertainties and conservatisms in transient power and temperature predictions. These capabilities are implemented within a parallel computational solver framework, which is able to represent an arbitrary number of neutron energy groups, angles, and spatial discretizations, while internally coupled to an unstructured finite element multi-physics code for temperature and displacement calculations. This capability is demonstrated on a three-dimensional control rod ejection simulation run in parallel utilizing forty-four neutron energy groups.

An …