October 2014

October 27, 2014January 15, 2019

The CASL Energy Innovation Hub Development of the Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications

SPEAKER:

JESS C. GEHIN, PH.D.

REACTOR TECHNOLOGY R&D INTEGRATION LEAD
REACTOR AND NUCLEAR SYSTEMS DIVISION, ORNL

DATE/TIME:

MON, 10/27/2014 - 4:00PM TO 5:00PM

LOCATION:

3105 ETCHEVERRY HALL

Fall 2014 Colloquium Series

Abstract:

The Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) is the first Energy Innovation Hub created by the US Department of Energy in 2010. Its primary goal is to develop modeling and simulation capabilities in support of the nuclear power industries’ objectives of reducing the cost of electrical energy generation by increased power uprates, extended fuel discharge burnups, and increased plant lifetime. In order to achieve this, CASL is developing the Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA) that includes multiphysics coupling of neutronics, thermal-hydraulics, fuel thermal-mechanical performance, and coolant chemistry. This presentation will discuss VERA development and provide an overview results from VERA for the modeling of the Tennessee Valley Authority Watts Bar Unit 1 reactor and the Westinghouse AP1000®.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Jess Gehin is currently the Reactor Technology R&D Integration Lead in the Reactor and Nuclear Systems Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He also leads the Physics Integration Focus Area for the Consortium for Advanced Modeling and Simulation of Light Water Reactors as well as being engaged in additional programmatic areas related to advanced nuclear fuel cycles and advanced reactors. His primary areas of expertise are nuclear reactor physics and reactor and fuel cycle technology. From 2003 to 2008 Dr. Gehin served as the leader of the ORNL Reactor Analysis Group with projects sponsored primarily by the Department of Energy office of Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, National Nuclear Security Administration, Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense. Prior to this position, Dr. Gehin was a Senior R&D staff member performing research primarily in the area of nuclear reactor physics working on projects such as the development of the Advanced Neutron Source Research Reactor, Fissile Material Disposition, and modeling of experiments in the High Flux Isotope Reactor. Dr. Gehin earned his B.S. degree in Nuclear Engineering in 1988 from Kansas State University and M.S. (1990) and Ph.D. (1992) degrees in Nuclear Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Gehin also holds the position of Joint Associate Professor in the Nuclear Engineering Department at the University of Tennessee.

October 20, 2014January 15, 2019

Passivity; the Enabler of Our Reactive Metals-Based Civilization

SPEAKER:

DIGBY D. MACDONALD, PH.D.

DEPARTMENTS OF NUCLEAR ENGINEERING AND MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

DATE/TIME:

MON, 10/20/2014 - 4:00PM TO 5:00PM

LOCATION:

3105 ETCHEVERRY HALL

Fall 2014 Colloquium Series

Abstract:

For more than forty years, the conditions for the existence of the passive state, and hence for the existence of our metals-based civilization, which is based upon the use of the reactive metals (Al, Cr, Fe, Ni, etc) to build machines, have been described in terms of equilibrium thermodynamics in the form of Pourbaix diagrams. These diagrams plot equilibrium potential versus pH relationships for various reactions (e.g., Fe/Fe3O4, Fe/Fe2+, Fe3O4/Fe2+) to define regions of stability or predominance. However, Pourbaix diagrams provide an equilibrium view of passivity, whereas passive films are non-equilibrium structures, whose existence depends upon an appropriate relationship between the rate of formation and the rate of destruction. Accordingly, a more accurate and realistic description of the phenomena of passivity and passivity breakdown must be found in the field of electrochemical kinetics. It is this kinetic theory for depassivation (loss of passivity) that is presented in this paper and which has led to the development of Kinetic Stability Diagrams. KSDs are kinetic alternatives to the classical, thermodynamic equilibrium diagrams and provide a much more accurate view of passivity in highly acidic environments where the utility of Pourbaix diagrams is limited. It is shown that the kinetic theory for depassivation not only accounts for transpassive dissolution, acid depassivation, flow-assisted corrosion, and fretting corrosion, and other “localized corrosion processes”, but it also led to the discovery of a new form of depassivation, which is termed “resistive depassivation”. When applied to microscopic regions on a metal surface, at which cation vacancies that are generated at the film/solution interface by the absorption of chloride ion into surface oxygen vacancies condense at the metal/film interface, and hence cause cessation of the growth of the barrier layer into the metal, “depassivation” theory provides a natural account of blister formation and subsequent passivity breakdown. This presentation will present the theory of passivity breakdown according to the point defect model and will show that the theory accounts essentially for all that is known about this important phenomenon.

About the Speaker:

Born in Thames, New Zealand, December 7 1943, Professor Macdonald gained his BSc and MSc degrees in Chemistry at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and his Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from the University of Calgary in Canada. He has served as Assistant Research Officer at Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., Lecturer in Chemistry at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, Senior Research Associate at Alberta Sulfur Research, Honorary Associate Professor at the Chemistry Department of the University of Calgary, Director and Professor of the Fontana Corrosion Center, Ohio State University, Vice President, Physical Sciences Division, SRI International, Menlo Park, California and has been Professor and later Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Pennsylvania State University since 1991. On December 31, 2012, Professor Macdonald retired from Penn State and accepted Emeritus status at the university. He then moved to California become Professor in Residence with a joint appointment between the Departments of Nuclear Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley.

Professor Macdonald has received numerous awards and honors, including the 1991 Carl Wagner Memorial Award from The Electrochemical Society; the 1992 Willis Rodney Whitney Award from The National Association of Corrosion Engineers for “contributions to the science of corrosion”; the W. B. Lewis Memorial Lecture from Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd., for his “contributions to the development of nuclear power in the service of mankind”; the H. H. Uhlig Award from The Electrochemical Society; the U. R. Evans Award from The Institute of Corrosion, UK; the 20th Khwarizmi International Award in fundamental science; and the Wilson Research and Teaching Awards of the Pennsylvania State University. He is an elected fellow of NACE-International; The Electrochemical Society; the Royal Society of Canada; the Royal Society of New Zealand; ASM International; the World Innovation Foundation; the Institute of Corrosion (UK); and the International Society of Electrochemistry. From 1993 to 1997 he was a member of the US Air Force Science Advisory Board with the protocol rank of Lieutenant General. He was awarded the US Air Force Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service in 1997. Dr. Macdonald was a Trustee of ASM International and has recently (2011) been inducted Doctuer Honoris Causa by INSA-Lyon, Lyon, France. He was a recent (2011) recipient of the Lee Hsun Research Award of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. More recently (2012), he received the Faraday Memorial Trust Gold Medal from the Central Electrochemical Research Institute in Karaikudi, India, for his work in electrochemistry and in particular on the phenomenon of passivity and passivity breakdown, and in 2013 he was awarded the Gibbs Award for his ground-breaking work on the properties of aqueous solutions at high temperatures [for example, he is the first and only person to measure the pH of an aqueous solution at supercritical temperatures (T > 374.15 oC), with the measurements being made at temperatures up to 528 oC]. In September 2014, he was awarded the Frumkin Memorial Medal by the International Society of Electrochemistry primarily for his work on passivity.

Dr. Macdonald has published more than 900 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals, books, and conference proceedings, plus four books, one of which ("Transient Techniques in Electrochemistry") established an important area of electrochemical research, and has 11 patents and numerous invention disclosures credited to his name.

October 13, 2014January 15, 2019

Global Problems and Global Solutions

SPEAKER:

DR. JOHN GILLELAND

CEO OF TERRAPOWER, LLC.

DATE/TIME:

MON, 10/13/2014 - 4:00PM TO 5:00PM

LOCATION:

3105 ETCHEVERRY HALL

Fall 2014 Colloquium Series

Abstract:

John will talk about the conditions needed for starting and then controlling international development programs. Examples are the traveling wave reactor development program, Archimedes Filter development, ITER, and the US-Japan Collaboration on DIII/DIIID. Similarities and differences will be discussed. John had managerial responsibility in all these programs. Emphasis will be placed on the current TWR program.

About the Speaker:

John Gilleland is the Chief Executive Officer of TerraPower LLC. The Company is focused on the development of advanced nuclear power systems.

Previously Dr Gilleland founded and served as the CEO of Archimedes Technology Group, a company which created a new technology that could greatly speed up weapons waste cleanup and opens new approaches to commercial spent fuel reprocessing.

As Chief Scientist and Vice president of Energy Programs at Bechtel Corporation he had responsibility for a large number of advanced energy production and energy storage projects. This included large scale renewable energy projects as well as advanced nuclear systems.

Prior to that he served as the US Managing Director of ITER during its Conceptual Design Phase and Director of the DIIID fusion research program at General Atomics.

October 6, 2014January 15, 2019

AN INSIDER VIEW ON SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING

SPEAKER:

DR. BAPTISTE GAULT

JOURNAL PUBLISHER, MATERIALS SCIENCE, ELSEVIER LTD.

DATE/TIME:

MON, 10/06/2014 - 4:00PM TO 5:00PM

LOCATION:

3105 ETCHEVERRY HALL

Fall 2014 Colloquium Series

Abstract:

Elsevier is the world-leading scientific publishing company, with almost 25% market share across most fields within science, technology and medicine. Although researchers interact with the publishing industry on a daily basis, when using databases to seek for papers to support their own research or when trying to get their articles published, yet the internal mechanisms of scientific publishing are usually quite obscure to researchers and more generally to the scientific community.

Since 2005, I have authored more than 65 peer-reviewed research articles and reviewed about 50 for more than 15 journals. I have written the first monograph on atom probe tomography in more than 10 years, have given more than half a dozen invited talks, chaired sessions at international conferences and workshops, and have given invited lectures and seminars in major universities in China, the USA, France, Germany, and Japan. So I have some ideas of the idiosyncrasies of scientific publishing from both perspectives that I hope to share with you.

During this presentation, I will aim to throw light on our roles within the scientific research community that range from article filtering by the editors, quality-insurance via peer-review, dissemination and enabling access via Sciencedirect and databases such as Scopus. This general presentation will be followed by an interactive, Q&A session that will enable me to dwell on the aspects of interest and provide an opportunity for the audience to give feedback and express their expectations.

About the Speaker:

After a PhD at the frontier between physics and materials science in France (University of Rouen, 2006) focused on developing the pulsed laser atom probe microscope, I have successively been a research scientist at The Australian Centre for Microscopy & Microanalysis at The University of Sydney (Australia), a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Materials of the University of Oxford (UK), a research scientist at The University of Sydney (again) on a joint position with the Australian Nuclear Science & Technology Organisation, and finally an assistant professor at McMaster University in Canada for a few months. I moved into my role of Publisher at Elsevier Ltd. in Dec. 2012.