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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.”
Michael Epstein, Hans K. Fauske, Charles F. Askonas, Marc A. Vial, Patricia Paviet-Hartmann
Nuclear Technology | Volume 163 | Number 2 | August 2008 | Pages 294-306
Technical Paper | Reprocessing | doi.org/10.13182/NT08-A3989
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Adiabatic calorimetry testing was performed to determine the Arrhenius relations for the chemical self-heat rates generated by the oxidation of tri-n-butyl phosphate saturated with nitric acid ("organic phase"). The adiabatic calorimetry tests showed that the runaway reaction is tempered at ~109°C when the organic phase rests on top of a layer of aqueous nitric acid ("aqueous phase"). It is believed that tempering in the laboratory-scale two-layer organic/aqueous system is mainly due to the upward transport of dissolved water from the aqueous phase to the organic phase where the water evaporates into rising reaction product gas bubbles. The rate of water transport depends strongly on the location and rate of product gas bubble generation. Isothermal tests were performed that clearly reveal that the reaction product gas bubbles originate in the underlying aqueous layer and that their rate of generation is bubbling enhanced reactant mass transfer controlled. A semiempirical expression for the rate of gas generation was developed from the measurements and from available correlations on enhanced mass transfer in bubbling pools. The empirical and semiempirical relations reported here for chemical self-heat rates and reaction product gas production are necessary to determine the thermal stability boundaries of single-layer and two-layer systems, predictions of which appear in the companion paper, "Thermal Stability and Safe Venting of the Tri-N-Butyl Phosphate-Nitric Acid-Water ("Red Oil") System - III: Predictions of Thermal Stability Boundaries and Required Vent Size," Nuclear Technology, Vol. 163, p. 307 (2008).