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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.”
Hyung Seok Kang, Sang Baik Kim, Min-Hwan Kim, Won-Jae Lee, Hee Cheon No
Nuclear Technology | Volume 166 | Number 1 | April 2009 | Pages 86-100
Technical Paper | Special Issue on Nuclear Hydrogen Production, Control, and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A6971
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Regulatory issues are discussed to establish Korean regulations on the safety distance between a very high temperature reactor (VHTR) and a hydrogen production facility. The major issues for the regulations concerning a gas explosion are an overpressure criteria, a regulation philosophy, and an overpressure prediction method. The overpressure can be predicted using empirical correlations of the trinitrotuluene (TNT) equivalent method and the multi-energy method (MEM). A comparison work of the predicted values using these correlations and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) explosion test results was performed to evaluate the applicability of these correlations to a VHTR. The MEM predicts the peak overpressure better than the TNT equivalent method because the explosion test results in a deflagration phenomenon. Thus, the MEM may be used effectively to estimate the peak overpressure for the gas explosion simply. A CFD analysis for the explosion test was also performed to establish an analysis methodology for a gas explosion. A spark ignition model to simulate an electric spark of 40 J in the JAEA explosion test was developed based on an energy conservation law. A sensitivity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calculation was performed to elucidate the optimized pressure, temperature, and radius value of the spark ignition model. The CFD analysis results showed that the peak overpressure and the flame front time of arrival may be predicted better by the CFD analysis than by the MEM if the proper pressure and radius for the spark ignition model are chosen. So, the CFD analysis may be used as an accurate evaluation tool to provide the three-dimensional information of an overpressure and a time history of the overpressure variation. Therefore, it is recommended that the risk-informed regulation, the MEM, and the CFD analysis method should be used together to determine a safety distance.