Nuclear Engineering Commons^™

Nuclear Power: Black Sky Liability Or Black Sky Asset?, Sherrell R. Greene

International Journal of Nuclear Security

Ready access to abundant electricity is a key enabler of modern life. During the past decade the vulnerability of Critical Infrastructure sectors in the U.S. to a variety of natural hazards and man-made threats has become increasingly apparent. The electrical infrastructure (the “Grid”) is the foundation for all other critical civil infrastructures upon which our society depends. Therefore, protection of the Grid is an energy security, homeland security, and national security issue of highest importance. Geomagnetic disturbances (GMD) induced by solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs), electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attacks, and cyber attacks are three events having the potential to plunge …

Development Of Instrumentation And Control Systems For An Integral Large Scale Pressurized Water Reactor, Matthew Rowland Morrow Lish

Doctoral Dissertations

Small and large scale integral light water reactors are being developed to supply electrical power and to meet the needs of process heat, primarily for water desalination. This dissertation research focuses on the instrumentation and control of a large integral inherently safe light water reactor (designated as I²S-LWR) which is being designed as part of a grant by the U.S. Department of Energy Integrated Research Project (IRP). This 969 MWe integral pressurized water reactor (PWR) incorporates as many passive safety features as possible while maintaining competitive costs with current light water reactors. In support of this work, the …

Adopting 3d Time-Of-Flight Sensing Technology For Design Information Verification In International Safeguards, Matthew Stephen Duchene

Doctoral Dissertations

International safeguards inspectors periodically perform examinations at sensitive nuclear facilities to verify that the facilities’ designs, layouts, and functions are identical to information declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Such design information verification (DIV) relies on tools and techniques—such as 3D laser range-finding (3DLR) with light detection and ranging (LIDAR) instruments—that are resource intensive. This research explores 3D Time-of-Flight (TOF) sensors as a possible alternative technology to LIDAR systems for performing spatial change-detection to enhance the DIV process.

This research uses the Microsoft Kinect Version 2 (Kinect v2) camera system, one of several commercial depth-sensing instruments that is …