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Remembering ANS member Gil Brown
Brown
The nuclear community is mourning the loss of Gilbert Brown, who passed away on July 11 at the age of 77 following a battle with cancer.
Brown, an American Nuclear Society Fellow and an ANS member for nearly 50 years, joined the faculty at Lowell Technological Institute—now the University of Massachusetts–Lowell—in 1973 and remained there for the rest of his career. He eventually became director of the UMass Lowell nuclear engineering program. After his retirement, he remained an emeritus professor at the university.
Sukesh Aghara, chair of the Nuclear Engineering Department Heads Organization, noted in an email to NEDHO members and others that “Gil was a relentless advocate for nuclear energy and a deeply respected member of our professional community. He was also a kind and generous friend—and one of the reasons I ended up at UMass Lowell. He served the university with great dedication. . . . Within NEDHO, Gil was a steady presence and served for many years as our treasurer. His contributions to nuclear engineering education and to this community will be dearly missed.”
Zhengming Zhang, Shuyan He
Nuclear Technology | Volume 160 | Number 2 | November 2007 | Pages 178-186
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT07-A3891
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper studies one of the key aspects in the leak-before-break technique: the leak rate of a gas medium through penetrated cracks. The focus is on the results of theoretical studies. Based on the need for easy use in engineering calculation, two analytical models have been developed for the calculation of the leak rate of a gas medium. The first model is the isentropic flow model, which supposes that the gas flowing through the penetrated crack can be treated as isentropic flow. This model has theoretical solutions and can be applied easily, but it will overpredict the leak rate of a gas medium because it does not take the friction and other disturbances into consideration. The second model is the transient flow model, which only supposes that the gas flowing through the penetrated crack can be simplified as one-dimensional flow. This model can take the most influential factors of the gas flow into consideration. These factors include the variation of upstream pressure, various kinds of pressure losses during gas flow, and the heat exchange between the gas and the outside structures. The results of numerical simulations show that the transient flow model is suitable for engineering practices.