This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.

In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.

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Description
A nonlinear dynamic model for a passively cooled small modular reactor (SMR) is developed. The nuclear steam supply system (NSSS) model includes representations for reactor core, steam generator, pressurizer, hot leg riser and downcomer. The reactor core is modeled with the combination of: (1) neutronics, using point kinetics equations for

A nonlinear dynamic model for a passively cooled small modular reactor (SMR) is developed. The nuclear steam supply system (NSSS) model includes representations for reactor core, steam generator, pressurizer, hot leg riser and downcomer. The reactor core is modeled with the combination of: (1) neutronics, using point kinetics equations for reactor power and a single combined neutron group, and (2) thermal-hydraulics, describing the heat transfer from fuel to coolant by an overall heat transfer resistance and single-phase natural circulation. For the helical-coil once-through steam generator, a single tube depiction with time-varying boundaries and three regions, i.e., subcooled, boiling, and superheated, is adopted. The pressurizer model is developed based upon the conservation of fluid mass, volume, and energy. Hot leg riser and downcomer are treated as first-order lags. The NSSS model is incorporated with a turbine model which permits observing the power with given steam flow, pressure, and enthalpy as input. The overall nonlinear system is implemented in the Simulink dynamic environment. Simulations for typical perturbations, e.g., control rod withdrawal and increase in steam demand, are run. A detailed analysis of the results show that the steady-state values for full power are in good agreement with design data and the model is capable of predicting the dynamics of the SMR. Finally, steady-state control programs for reactor power and pressurizer pressure are also implemented and their effect on the important system variables are discussed.
ContributorsArda, Samet Egemen (Author) / Holbert, Keith E. (Thesis advisor) / Undrill, John (Committee member) / Tylavsky, Daniel (Committee member) / Karady, George G. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
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Description
With the status of nuclear proliferation around the world becoming more and more complex, nuclear forensics methods are needed to restrain the unlawful usage of nuclear devices. Lithium-ion batteries are present ubiquitously in consumer electronic devices nowadays. More importantly, the materials inside the batteries have the potential to be used

With the status of nuclear proliferation around the world becoming more and more complex, nuclear forensics methods are needed to restrain the unlawful usage of nuclear devices. Lithium-ion batteries are present ubiquitously in consumer electronic devices nowadays. More importantly, the materials inside the batteries have the potential to be used as neutron detectors, just like the activation foils used in reactor experiments. Therefore, in a nuclear weapon detonation incident, these lithium-ion batteries can serve as sensors that are spatially distributed.

In order to validate the feasibility of such an approach, Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) models are built for various lithium-ion batteries, as well as neutron transport from different fission nuclear weapons. To obtain the precise battery compositions for the MCNP models, a destructive inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) analysis is utilized. The same battery types are irradiated in a series of reactor experiments to validate the MCNP models and the methodology. The MCNP nuclear weapon radiation transport simulations are used to mimic the nuclear detonation incident to study the correlation between the nuclear reactions inside the batteries and the neutron spectra. Subsequently, the irradiated battery activities are used in the SNL-SAND-IV code to reconstruct the neutron spectrum for both the reactor experiments and the weapon detonation simulations.

Based on this study, empirical data show that the lithium-ion batteries have the potential to serve as widely distributed neutron detectors in this simulated environment to (1) calculate the nuclear device yield, (2) differentiate between gun and implosion fission weapons, and (3) reconstruct the neutron spectrum of the device.
ContributorsZhang, Taipeng (Author) / Holbert, Keith E. (Thesis advisor) / Karady, George G. (Committee member) / Qin, Jiangchao (Committee member) / Metzger, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017