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September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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.”
Mohammad Abdul Motalab, Woosong Kim, Yonghee Kim
Nuclear Technology | Volume 201 | Number 2 | February 2018 | Pages 122-137
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2017.1414541
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper reports on the improvement of the power coefficient of reactivity (PCR) and minimization of the coolant void reactivity (CVR) of a CANDU6 reactor. A burnable absorber of Er2O3 (erbia) was mixed homogeneously with UO2 fuel in the central fuel element to maximize the Doppler broadening and minimize the CVR of the CANDU6 reactor. In this study, recovered uranium (RU) with 0.9 wt% 235U enrichment was utilized in the advanced CANFLEX fuel bundle instead of natural uranium (NU). First, the optimal loading of erbia was investigated through lattice-based analysis, and its impact on the lattice characteristics was examined. In particular, both the fuel Doppler effect and CVR were evaluated for the RU-loaded lattice. For a more reliable analysis, a three-dimensional (3-D) equilibrium core was determined based on the standard time-average methods for erbia-loaded CANDU6 cores using the Serpent-COREDAX/CANDU code system. The core analysis was based on a hybrid two-step method in which the lattice analysis was performed by the Serpent Monte Carlo code, and the 3-D whole-core analysis was done using a diffusion theory–based nodal code named COREDAX. For the derived equilibrium cores, the core performances were evaluated in terms of the fuel burnup and power profile. Additionally, the safety parameters, including the PCR and CVR, were evaluated for the equilibrium core conditions. The safety parameters of the 3-D whole core were compared with those obtained with simple lattice-based analysis. It was observed in the analysis that Er-loaded CANFLEX-RU fuel provides a 60% more negative fuel temperature coefficient than standard CANDU-NU fuel.
