Category: Spring 2018 Colloquium Series

SPEAKER:
XUNXIANG HU

RESEARCH STAFF/EUGENE P. WIGNER FELLOW

OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY, OAK RIDGE, TN 37931

EMAIL: HUX1@ORNL.GOV

DATE/TIME:
MON, 04/23/2018 – 4:00PM TO 5:00PM
LOCATION:
3105 ETCHEVERRY HALL
Spring 2018 Colloquium Series
Abstract:

Tungsten as a candidate plasma facing material in fusion reactors is confronted by a hostile environment, characterized by high temperature, and high fluxes of heat and particles (D, T, He, and neutrons) when in service. In particular, the 14 MeV-peak neutron irradiation produces displacement damage as well as generating significant concentrations of transmutation elements (i.e., He, Re, Os), resulting in important thermo-mechanical property degradation. In this presentation, the microstructural evolution of tungsten exposed to neutron irradiation at High Flux Isotope Reactor will be introduced as well as the consequential mechanical property degradation.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Xunxiang Hu is currently a Research Staff/Eugene P. Wigner Fellow at the Materials Science and Technology Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He received his PhD in Nuclear Engineering from UC Berkeley in 2013. Before coming to US, he received his Bachelor (2007) and Master (2009) degrees in Nuclear Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Tsinghua University in China, respectively. His research is in the field of irradiation effects of materials, and is focused on gas behavior in structural materials used in fission and fusion environments.

SPEAKER:
AREG DANAGOULIAN
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
DATE/TIME:
MON, 04/16/2018 – 4:00PM TO 5:00PM
LOCATION:
3105 ETCHEVERRY HALL
Spring 2018 Colloquium Series
Abstract:

Nuclear disarmament treaties are not sufficient in and of themselves to neutralize the existential threat of the nuclear weapons. Technologies are necessary for verifying the authenticity of the nuclear warheads undergoing dismantlement before counting them towards a treaty partner’s obligation. A team of scientists working at MIT has developed two novel concepts which leverage isotope-specific nuclear resonance phenomena to authenticate a warhead’s fissile components by comparing them to a previously authenticated template.  Most actinides such as uranium and plutonium exhibit unique sets of resonances when interacting with MeV photons and eV neutrons. When measured, these resonances produce isotope-specific features in the spectral data, thus creating an isotopic  “fingerprint” of an object. All information in these measurement has to be and is encrypted in the physical domain in a manner that amounts to a physical zero-knowledge proof system. Using Monte Carlo simulations and experimental proof-of-concept measurements these techniques are shown to reveal no isotopic or geometric information about the weapon, while readily detecting hoaxing attempts. These new methodologies can dramatically increase the reach and trustworthiness of future nuclear disarmament treaties.  The talk will discuss the concepts and recent results, and will give a general overview of nuclear security research pursued at MIT.

About the Speaker:

Areg Danagoulian is an assistant professor at MIT’s Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering.  His teaching and research focus on leveraging nuclear physics to mitigate the dangers of nuclear materials and weapons.  He is currently working on new, monochromatic methodologies for cargo screening as well as technologies for treaty verification via physical cryptography. After completing his PhD in experimental nuclear physics in 2006 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Areg moved to Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he worked on a variety of research areas including stockpile stewardship, physics beyond the standard model, and nuclear security.  He then worked for six years in industry, where he developed an award-winning active interrogation system which is currently being used to screen commercial cargoes for the presence of fissionable materials.

SPEAKER:
JAMES STUBBINS, PH.D.

DONALD BIGGAR WILLETT PROFESSOR

DEPARTMENT OF NUCLEAR, PLASMA AND RADIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

DATE/TIME:
MON, 04/09/2018 – 4:00PM TO 5:00PM
LOCATION:
3105 ETCHEVERRY HALL
Spring 2018 Colloquium Series
Abstract:

There has been a continuing effort to develop enhanced versions of several types of engineering alloys by strengthening them with a very high number density of very small oxide particles. These particles, if evenly distributed, should provide major improvements in material strength especially at very high temperatures where most engineering metal alloys lose strength. Since the oxide particles are actually ceramics, they should have a very high melting point, much higher than metal alloys, and maintain their stability and strengthening capabilities even at very high temperatures. For nuclear applications where atomic displacement damage takes place, the particles also offer a very large amount of internal surface area which can potentially absorb irradiation-induced defects to reduce radiation damage effects.

This process of making metal alloys with dispersed oxide particles has been attempted in a wide variety of metal systems with some success. There has been a particularly heavy emphasis on developing ODS iron-chromium steels, but much less emphasis on stainless steels. This talk will discuss the possibilities for the development of ODS austenitic steels, which are widely used in current nuclear reactors and are slated for use in a variety of advanced nuclear fission and nuclear fusion reactor systems. The work discusses the microstructure and mechanical behavior of this class of new alloys for nuclear applications.

About the Speaker:

Prof. Stubbins earned his B.S. in Nuclear Engineering at the University of Michigan and his M.S. in Nuclear Engineering and Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Cincinnati. He held postdoctoral/visiting scientist positions at the Nuclear Research Center, Karlsruhe, Germany and at Oxford University and Harwell Labs in the United Kingdom, before joining General Electric as a Principle Investigator on the US High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor Program. He then moved to the University of Illinois were he is now Donald Biggar Willett Professor of Engineering and was formerly Head of the Department of Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering for the past 18 years. He also holds a Professor appointment in the Japanese World Premier Institute – International Institute for Carbon Neutral Energy Research at Kyushu University, Japan. He is currently a visiting scientist at Los Alamos National Lab and has also held visiting scientist appointments at Argonne National Lab, Oak Ridge National Lab, and Pacific Northwest National Lab in the US and Risø National Lab, Denmark and the University of Pisa, Italy.

SPEAKER:
DR. CRISTIAN RABITI
DATE/TIME:
MON, 04/02/2018 – 4:00PM TO 5:00PM
LOCATION:
3105 ETCHEVERRY HALL
Spring 2018 Colloquium Series
Abstract:

The increase penetration of variable renewable electricity suppliers in the grid is leading to an increase volatility of the electric net demand (electricity demand minus variable renewable supply). The additional volatility increases the cost of covering net demand and decreases the amount of load that can be classified as base-load. The reduction of the base-load challenges the economics of capital intense suppliers among which nuclear. A possible solution would be the introduction of additional variable load capable to absorb volatility. In particular, if this is done using a direct coupling (steam) between the variable load and the nuclear plant, the benefit could be increased by a better thermal efficiency of the process.

The presentation will focus on the analytical and software framework under construction to perform the needed economic assessments. Early results will be presented and discussed.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Cristian Rabiti is currently the Nuclear Engineering Method Development Department Manager at the Idaho National Laboratory. His areas of expertise are in neutron transport, reactor physics, uncertainty quantification, risk analysis and financial modelling.

Dr. Cristian Rabiti is currently leading the financial modelling of nuclear hybrid energy systems. His particular interest in this field is economic evaluation of nuclear energy by system cost analysis, in a way to conciliate risk analysis with financial performance.

The passion for analysis of stochastic system started when he was leading the RAVEN software development which is currently used for risk analysis, financial modelling, and uncertainty quantification. Dr. Cristian has become since then a strong proponent of advanced validation methodologies and risk analysis.

Dr. Cristian started his career in the development of computational tools in neutron transport and reactor physic. He worked on time dependent transport within the ERANOS tool-suite (FZK-Germany), later he worked on the method of characteristics for the PROTHEUS code (Argonne National Laboratory), and, when he started his job at the Idaho National Laboratory he led the development of the reactor physics core simulator PHISICS (Idaho National Laboratory).

Dr Cristian Rabiti has a PhD in mechanical engineering for the university of Stuttgart (2006) and an MBA from IE Business school (Madrid 2010, Spain)

SPEAKER:
AMBASSADOR LINTON F. BROOKS
FORMER ADMINISTRATOR, NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
DATE/TIME:
MON, 03/19/2018 – 4:00PM TO 5:00PM
LOCATION:
3105 ETCHEVERRY HALL
Spring 2018 Colloquium Series
Abstract:

Co-sponsored by the NSSC and NPWG

Like each of its post-Cold War predecessors, the Trump administration has reviewed its policies and posture with respect to nuclear weapons.  The result is a mixture of continuity and change, with the change reflecting a re-focus from the long-range hopeful vision of the early Obama administration to a more somber assessment of near-term threats.

This presentation will discuss what is new in the document, the significance of the changes and the additional policy and technical challenges resulting from the international developments to which the administration is responding.  It will focus on the areas that have been most contentious and examine the validity of the concerns raised.

About the Speaker:

Ambassador Brooks served from July 2002 to January 2007 as Administrator of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, responsible for the U.S. nuclear weapons program and for the Department of Energy’s international nuclear nonproliferation programs.  In the early 1990s, he served as Chief U.S. Negotiator for the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.  Ambassador Brooks has over five decades of experience in national security, much of it associated with nuclear weapons, including service as Assistant Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Director of Defense Programs and Arms Control on the National Security Council staff and a number of Navy and Defense Department assignments.  As a Navy submarine officer, he served on four nuclear-weapons capable ships.  Ambassador Brooks is now an independent consultant on national security, a Senior Advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Distinguished Research Fellow at the National Defense University, a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on International Security and Arms Control and of the Board of Managers supervising Sandia National Laboratories the State Department International Security Advisory Board and an advisor to five other Department of Energy national laboratories.

SPEAKER:
PAUL ROMANO
COMPUTATIONAL SCIENTIST, MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTER SCIENCE (MCS) DIVISION, ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY
DATE/TIME:
MON, 03/12/2018 – 4:00PM TO 5:00PM
LOCATION:
3105 ETCHEVERRY HALL
Spring 2018 Colloquium Series
Abstract:
The Monte Carlo (MC) method is one of the most appealing options for high-fidelity simulation of nuclear reactors. However, its use for such problems has been limited by a number of factors: prohibitive execution time required to reach acceptable statistics, excessive memory requirements, slow fission source convergence, and the ability to incorporate multiphysics feedback, to name a few. In the last decade, much progress has been made towards addressing some of these challenges. In this talk, I will discuss the progress to-date, where the community stands with respect to carrying our full core MC simulations, and how the trends in computing architectures will influence future developments.
About the Speaker:

Paul Romano is a computational scientist at Argonne National Laboratory who primarily works on high-performance computing and software development for nuclear energy applications. He is the original author and lead developer of OpenMC, an open source code for simulating particle transport via the Monte Carlo method that is widely used in nuclear engineering R&D. He received his B.S. in nuclear engineering and mathematics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his Ph.D. in nuclear science and engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

SPEAKER:
MIKE LAUFER
CEO, KAIROS POWER
DATE/TIME:
MON, 03/05/2018 – 4:00PM TO 5:00PM
LOCATION:
3105 ETCHEVERRY HALL
Spring 2018 Colloquium Series
Abstract:

Kairos Power is a nuclear energy technology and engineering company based in the San Francisco Bay Area whose mission is to enable the world’s transition to clean energy, with the ultimate goal of dramatically improving people’s quality of life while protecting the environment.  This goal will be accomplished through the commercialization of the fluoride salt-cooled high temperature reactor (FHR) that can be deployed with robust safety, affordable costs, and flexible deployment.  Kairos Power’s development roadmap is focused on prototype demonstration before 2030 followed by a large deployment ramp in U.S. electricity market in the late 2030s as a large fraction of the existing natural gas generating capacity will need to be replaced.  The Kairos Power team understands the long development time required for new energy technologies to come into the market, but are committed to finding new ways to accelerate the process and recognize that Kairos Power has the potential to transform our energy supply.

About the Speaker:

Mike Laufer currently serves as Chief Executive Officer for Kairos Power and is responsible for high level strategy and operations within the company.  Prior to co-founding Kairos Power, Dr. Laufer was a postdoctoral scholar at U.C. Berkeley where his research included work in reactor safety, design, licensing, and code validation for advanced non-light water reactors.  Dr. Laufer has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering with Honors in International Security Studies from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from U.C. Berkeley.

SPEAKER:
ANDREW VOYLES
PH.D. CANDIDATE, NUCLEAR ENGINEERING
DATE/TIME:
MON, 02/12/2018 – 4:00PM TO 5:00PM
LOCATION:
3105 ETCHEVERRY HALL
Spring 2018 Colloquium Series
Abstract:

The future of nuclear medicine would appear to be the paradigm of personalized medicine — targeted radionuclide therapy to spare healthy tissue, and theranostic medicine, which pairs an imaging isotope with a therapeutic isotope to provide simultaneous, real-time dose delivery and verification, leading to drastic reductions in prescribed patient dose. Candidate isotopes to meet these needs have been identified based on their chemical and radioactive decay properties, and the Bay Area Nuclear Data (BAND) Group is currently leading a series of campaigns to perform targeted, high-priority measurements of thin-target cross sections and thick-target integral yields. These studies will serve to facilitate the production of pre-clinical quantities of radioactivity for emerging and novel medical radionuclides. This talk will focus on the BAND Group’s recent efforts to measure production cross sections for emerging medical radionuclides, develop new methods for the monitoring of charged-particle beams, and characterize tunable quasi-monoenergetic neutron sources for high specific activity isotope production.  Along the way, we’ll learn how a wide array of students have been integrated into key roles in these developments, and how the assortment of unexpected difficulties in precision nuclear data measurements can make “simple” experiments not so simple, after all.

About the Speaker:

Mr. Voyles received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering (2013)  from the University of Utah, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. In his time at Berkeley, Mr. Voyles has led a number of efforts to develop novel medical radionuclides for pre-clinical studies, and can be found sailing the San Francisco Bay or brewing a variety of beverages in his free time.

SPEAKER:
YOUHO LEE

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

DEPARTMENT OF NUCLEAR ENGINEERING

UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO

DATE/TIME:
MON, 02/05/2018 – 4:00PM TO 5:00PM
LOCATION:
3105 ETCHEVERRY HALL
Spring 2018 Colloquium Series
Abstract:

In this seminar, an overview of the key technical challenges to nuclear fuel and reactor safety research that benefits from integrating thermal hydraulics and material mechanics will be presented. An in-depth discussion will ensue on the development of ultra-thermal shock tolerant material by controlling surface heat transfer, boiling-induced stresses, advanced instrumentation for pebble heat transfer, and machine-learning aided nuclear accident diagnosis; and the potential of this approach for creating new perspectives and solutions to modernizing nuclear reactor engineering.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Youho Lee joined the University of New Mexico (UNM) in September 2016 as an assistant professor in the Nuclear Engineering Department. Dr. Lee is a nuclear engineer studying various solid-fluid interface phenomena in extreme environments by integrating thermal hydraulics and material mechanics. His research interests include thermal hydraulics-mechanics coupled studies on reactor safety, reactor thermal hydraulics, nuclear fuel mechanical modelling and design, and machine learning aided accident diagnosis. Dr. Lee received a B.S. from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in 2009, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2011 and 2013, respectively. Prior to joining UNM, he served as a postdoctoral research fellow at KAIST. He was awarded the best paper in the division of fuel and materials at the 2014 Korean Nuclear Society Conference.

SPEAKER:
EVA BIRNBAUM

 

PROGRAM MANAGER

LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY, LOS ALAMOS, NM, USA

DATE/TIME:
MON, 01/29/2018 – 4:00PM TO 5:00PM
LOCATION:
3105 ETCHEVERRY HALL
Spring 2018 Colloquium Series
Abstract:

LANL’s Isotope Production Facility (IPF) is an intermediate energy proton bombardment facility at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE), configured to maximize production of high purity and high specific-activity isotopes. With a high current (250 mA) beam of 100 MeV protons incident on a water-cooled stack of three targets, IPF is well suited to produce specific long-lived isotopes in solid targets.  Targets are processed at the nearby Hot Cell Facility and the isolated isotope products are shipped to customers for medical and industrial use, as well as for research into future applications. Currently, beam time is primarily used for the production of ⁸²Sr and ⁶⁸Ge, both of which are utilized for medical imaging via positron emission tomography (PET). Recent upgrades to IPF will be discussed, including a unique adjustable collimator that will increase overall IPF production capacity by over a factor of 2. In addition, ongoing research is focused on production of a number of other radionuclides; details of progress towards Ci-scale direct production of ²²⁵Ac via irradiation of thorium targets will be described.

About the Speaker:

Eva Birnbaum Program Manager for Isotope Production

Dr. Birnbaum earned a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and a Concentration in Technology and Policy Studies from Carleton College, in Minnesota, followed by a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry from Caltech in Pasadena. She came to Los Alamos National Laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow to work in the areas of environmental remediation and catalysis, and became a staff member in 1998. She worked as a team leader in the trace metals analytical group, and then in the Materials Control Project investigating and mitigating contamination spread from hydrotest experiments at the firing sites. After a short entrepreneurial leave, she returned to LANL in 2010 as the team leader for the Laboratory’s Isotope Program, and became the Program Manager in 2014. The Isotope Program uses the LANSCE accelerator to produce radionuclides to meet the Nation’s needs for applications in medicine, industry, and R&D. As part of her interest in medical applications of radioisotopes, Dr. Birnbaum is exploring the fundamental chemical properties of actinium, an isotope of great interest for the treatment of cancer.