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Nuclear Engineering Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2007

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Theses/Dissertations

Articles 1 - 6 of 6

Full-Text Articles in Nuclear Engineering

A Generic Prognostic Framework For Remaining Useful Life Prediction Of Complex Engineering Systems, Alexander V. Usynin Dec 2007

A Generic Prognostic Framework For Remaining Useful Life Prediction Of Complex Engineering Systems, Alexander V. Usynin

Doctoral Dissertations

Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) is a general term that encompasses methods used to evaluate system health, predict the onset of failure, and mitigate the risks associated with the degraded behavior. Multitudes of health monitoring techniques facilitating the detection and classification of the onset of failure have been developed for commercial and military applications. PHM system designers are currently focused on developing prognostic techniques and integrating diagnostic/prognostic approaches at the system level. This dissertation introduces a prognostic framework, which integrates several methodologies that are necessary for the general application of PHM to a variety of systems. A method is developed …


Cavitation Of Mercury In A Centrifugal Pump, David Alan Hooper Dec 2007

Cavitation Of Mercury In A Centrifugal Pump, David Alan Hooper

Masters Theses

Cavitation is a significant concern for the reliable operation of a centrifugal pump. Liquid metal flow loops are used in nuclear, chemical, metal forming, and liquid metal dynamo applications. Understanding of the cavitation characteristics of liquid metals is increasingly important to the design and operation of these facilities. One recent field of cavitation research has developed for mercury flow in spallation targets used in neutron sources. To further the understanding of mercury cavitation, a review of the existing literature on water cavitation, liquid metal cavitation, and mercury cavitation is performed. The mechanics of cavitation and the analytical methods applied to …


Artificial Neural Network For Spectrum Unfolding Bonner Sphere Data, Jia Hou Dec 2007

Artificial Neural Network For Spectrum Unfolding Bonner Sphere Data, Jia Hou

Masters Theses

The use of Bonner Sphere Spectrometer (BSS) is a well-established method of measuring the energy distribution of neutron emission sources. The purpose of this research is to apply the Generalized Regression Neural Network (GRNN), a kind of Artificial Neural Network (ANN), to predict the neutron spectrum using the count rate data from a BSS. The BSS system was simulated with the MCNP5 Monte-Carlo code to calculate the response to neutrons of different energies for each combination of thermal neutron detector and polyethylene sphere. One hundred and sixty-three different types of neutron spectra were then investigated. GRNN Training and testing was …


Uncertainty Analysis Of Advanced Fuel Cycles To Control Plutonium Inventories, Thomas Christopher Anderson Dec 2007

Uncertainty Analysis Of Advanced Fuel Cycles To Control Plutonium Inventories, Thomas Christopher Anderson

Masters Theses

This paper assesses the uncertainty associated with the utilization and implementation of advanced fuel cycles to control plutonium inventories. The specific fuel cycles investigated are a partially closed cycle utilizing MOX reactors and completely closed one-tier fuel cycles utilizing fast reactors. Multiple methods for assessing these uncertainties were utilized. A scenario approach that varied the time and number of the implementation of the advanced reactors was used. It was found that the implementation of 3 FR/yr with a CR of 0.5 could reduce the amount of Pu by over 36% in reference to building 3 LWR/yr. In addition to reducing …


Investigations On Hydrocyclones For The Spallation Neutron Source, Lee Henry Hosack Dec 2007

Investigations On Hydrocyclones For The Spallation Neutron Source, Lee Henry Hosack

Masters Theses

The hydrocyclone is commonly used to separate oil from water, and particulates from fluid streams in various process industries. Two-fluid hydrodynamic theory is used here to develop a model for hydrocyclone performance in the application of separation of helium bubbles larger than 30 micron in diameter from liquid mercury at system pressure near 1 bar. The application is related to high power liquid metal target development for proton beams used in spallation neutron sources.


An Integrated Fuzzy Inference Based Monitoring, Diagnostic, And Prognostic System, Dustin R. Garvey May 2007

An Integrated Fuzzy Inference Based Monitoring, Diagnostic, And Prognostic System, Dustin R. Garvey

Doctoral Dissertations

To date the majority of the research related to the development and application of monitoring, diagnostic, and prognostic systems has been exclusive in the sense that only one of the three areas is the focus of the work. While previous research progresses each of the respective fields, the end result is a variable "grab bag" of techniques that address each problem independently. Also, the new field of prognostics is lacking in the sense that few methods have been proposed that produce estimates of the remaining useful life (RUL) of a device or can be realistically applied to real-world systems. This …