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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Neutron Energy Tuning Assemblies For Nuclear Weapon Environment Applications At The National Ignition Facility, Nicholas J. Quartemont
Neutron Energy Tuning Assemblies For Nuclear Weapon Environment Applications At The National Ignition Facility, Nicholas J. Quartemont
Theses and Dissertations
An energy tuning assembly was developed to spectrally shape the National Ignition Facility deuterium-tritium fusion neutron source to a notional thermonuclear and prompt fission neutron spectrum to fulfill neutron source capability gaps. The experimental neutron environment was characterized with activation dosimetry, neutronics and covariance models, and unfolded to determine the as-fielded neutron spectrum. The first energy tuning assembly was demonstrated to create synthetic spectrally accurate post-detonation fission products, enhancing U.S. technical nuclear forensics capabilities. ATHENA, a second-generation energy tuning assembly, was also optimized to meet similar objectives, but the new platform neutron fluence efficiency was increased by a factor of …
Mult-Spectral Imaging Of Vegetation With A Diffractive Plenoptic Camera, Tristan R. Naranjo
Mult-Spectral Imaging Of Vegetation With A Diffractive Plenoptic Camera, Tristan R. Naranjo
Theses and Dissertations
Snapshot multi-spectral sensors allow for object detection based on its spectrum for remote sensing applications in air or space. By making these types of sensors more compact and lightweight, it allows drones to dwell longer on targets or the reduction of transport costs for satellites. To address this need, I designed and built a diffractive plenoptic camera (DPC) which utilized a Fresnel zone plate and a light field camera in order to detect vegetation via a normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). This thesis derives design equations by relating DPC system parameters to its expected performance and evaluates its multi-spectral performance. …
Excited Argon 1s5 Production In Microhollow Cathode Discharges, Richard D. Peterson
Excited Argon 1s5 Production In Microhollow Cathode Discharges, Richard D. Peterson
Theses and Dissertations
Diode-pumped rare gas lasers (DPRGL) have been in development for their potential to become high energy lasers with excellent beam quality that is typical of gas lasers. DPRGL require metastable densities on the order of 1013 cm-3 at pressures around one atmosphere for efficient operation. Argon 1s5 number densities have been measured in microhollow cathode discharges (MHCD) using tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy. The MHCD had copper electrodes with gaps of 127 and 254 µm and hole diameters from 100-400 µm. Absorbance was measured at pressures of 37 Torr up to 400 Torr, where absorbance could no longer …
Coupling Nuclear Induced Phonon Propagation With Conversion Electron Mössbauer Spectroscopy, Michael J. Parker
Coupling Nuclear Induced Phonon Propagation With Conversion Electron Mössbauer Spectroscopy, Michael J. Parker
Theses and Dissertations
Mössbauer spectroscopy is a very sensitive measurement technique (10-8 eV) which prompted motivation for the experiment described in this thesis. Namely, can a sensitive detection system be developed to detect nuclear recoils on the order of 10 to 100 of eVs? The hypothesis that this thesis tests is: Nuclear induced phonon bursts caused by Rutherford scattered alphas, decayed from 241Am, in a type-310 stainless steel material can couple with 7.3 keV conversion electron Mössbauer events at the other end of the material which will have a statistically significant effect on a Mössbauer spectrum. The phonon bursts produced by …
Remote Quantification Of Smokestack Total Effluent Mass Flow Rates Using Imaging Fourier-Transform Spectroscopy, Jacob L. Harley
Remote Quantification Of Smokestack Total Effluent Mass Flow Rates Using Imaging Fourier-Transform Spectroscopy, Jacob L. Harley
Theses and Dissertations
A Telops Hyper-Cam midwave infrared (1.5 − 5.5μm) imaging Fourier-transform spectrometer (IFTS) was used to estimate industrial smokestack total effluent mass flow rates by combining spectrally-determined species concentrations with flow rates estimated via analysis of sequential images in the raw interferogram cube. Strong emissions from H2O, CO2, CO, SO2, and NO were observed in the spectrum. A previously established plume radiative transfer model was used to estimate gas concentrations, and a simple temporal cross-correlation analysis of sequential imagery enabled an estimation of the flow velocity. Final effluent mass flow rates for CO2 and …
Directional Pair-Production Spectrometer Design For Airborne Stand-Off Detection Of Special Nuclear Material, William L. Harrell
Directional Pair-Production Spectrometer Design For Airborne Stand-Off Detection Of Special Nuclear Material, William L. Harrell
Theses and Dissertations
The purposes of this research are to experimentally and theoretically prove the concept of a directional pair-production spectrometer to detect and locate the tailings that are created when making Special Nuclear Material (SNM) at stand-off distances from a remotely piloted vehicle (RPV). A directional pair-production spectrometer uses the information garnered from the high energy gamma rays emitted by these SNM manufacturing tailings to perform pair-production spectroscopy and identify the isotope of interest. Through simultaneous operation as a Compton camera, the detection system will be able to measure rudimentary directional information from the medium energy gamma decays. The detector used for …
Improving The Efficiency Of Photon Collection By Compton Rescue, Alexander W. Stevenson
Improving The Efficiency Of Photon Collection By Compton Rescue, Alexander W. Stevenson
Theses and Dissertations
A method to improve the efficiency of photon collection in thin planar HPGe detectors was investigated. The method involved implementing a second HPGe detector to collect Compton scattered photons from the primary detector and incorporating coincident interactions in the two detectors that sum to the full energy event into the energy spectrum. This method is termed Compton rescue because the Compton scattered photons make a partial energy deposition in the primary detector and are added back to the spectrum after being detected by the second detector. This research has implications on improving the efficiency of positron annihilation spectroscopy (PAS) techniques …
Use Of Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy To Determine Desorption Coefficients Of Trichioroethylene From Powdered Soils, Jay H. Foil
Use Of Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy To Determine Desorption Coefficients Of Trichioroethylene From Powdered Soils, Jay H. Foil
Theses and Dissertations
This laboratory thesis investigated the applicability of reflectance spectroscopy as a tool to measure desorption rates by directly observing the change in trichloroethylene bound to surface sites. Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy holds the promise of being a faster technique with minimal sample preparation time. Reflectance spectroscopy's dependence on the surface of the sample is its greatest advantage, as well as its greatest disadvantage. Both high and low resolution scans were made of different soil samples contaminated by trichloroethylene. After the technique of spectral subtraction was used, potential TCE signals were observed from the dolomitic limestone sample. Unfortunately, due to the low …