Abstract In the present study, the height of internal solitary wave is derived by combining the theoretical fluid flow field from perturbation method and MODIS images. The flow field is derived by assuming two-layer fluid system. Note that it is difficult to determine the interface depth from CTD measurement because sea water density changes continuously with depth. Moreover, changing the upper layer thickness will significantly affect the estimate of wave height. Thus, a proper method should be used so that the two-layer fluid system can represent the continuously stratified sea water. The resulting parameters for the two-layer system are the upper and lower layer thickness h1 and h2 and the corresponding densities £l1 and £l2 . Another important parameter dpp derived from MODIS images is the distance from dark-band to light-band. The dark-band and light-band are due to the interaction of surface and internal waves that changes roughness on the ocean surface. These processes are discussed in detail in this thesis. Finally, the parameters h1, h2, £l1, £l2 and dpp are combined to estimate internal solitary waves height in the deep ocean. According to the estimate for deep ocean with 3000m depth, the wave height is about 100m which is quite reasonable by comparing with in-situ observation.

This research has investigated the conditions necessary for atmospheric-induced stress corrosion cracking to occur in material taken from an intermediate level nuclear waste storage container by means of experiments in a humidity chamber. It has also characterised the residual stresses associated with the container welds by modelling and measurement. Based on the work conducted in this research, the major findings can be summarised as follows:• Deliquescence of salt particles is dependent on relative humidity but independent of the quantity of salt present.• The time to initiate cracking may be sensitive to temperature, getting longer as the temperature decreases, but the timeframe of work as not long enough to establish this conclusively.• AISCC can occur at a stress (residual or applied) of 400MPa (0.2% strain) or more if the other necessary conditions are present. While AISCC was not observed when no stress was present, the threshold of stress below which AISCC will definitely not occur has not been determined in this work.

Fusion power has the potential to produce clean and safe energy that can contribute significantly to the worlds energy system. The road to this promising energy resource has been long, but with one of the biggest projects in the scientific area that is now on going, a fusion project called ITER, the end of the road is ahead of us. Experiments with a new reactor wall are now in progress at the fusion test reactor JET in Oxford, England.  The experiment is a pre study of a possible reactor wall for the new fusion reactor ITER in Cadarache in Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur, France. The ITER like reactor wall (ILW) contains Beryllium and has theoretically favourable properties for achieving better reactor conditions, compared to the old Carbon based wall (CW). One reason for changing the wall is to decrease the fuel dilution, i.e. amount of particles that the reactor wall contributes to the fusion plasma. This is an important factor to minimize; 1% of fuel dilution with Carbon will cause a loss in power up to 12%, while the corresponding value for Beryllium is 8%. For Deuterium fuelled plasmas at JET, the fuel dilution can be quantified by the ratio of the Deuterium and electron densities, nd/ne. In this work, nd/ne is estimated using data from the neutron emission spectrometer TOFOR, along with measurements of the electron density (ne) and temperature (Te). In this report it is investigated how sensitive these fuel dilution measurements are to uncertainties in the measurements of ne and Te. The fuel dilution measurements changed relatively in a span of 10% to 23% when changing Te and ne with 10% in the fuel dilution model. To determine the differences in fuel dilution between the Carbon and ITER like reactor wall, a comparison has to be made between the old reactor wall and the new ILW. To do this, similar plasma scenarios need to be represented during fusion discharges with both walls. In this report, JET’s database is searched through using different search criteria, in order to enable a fair comparison between the walls. The comparison showed a tendency of lower fuel dilution, i.e. cleaner plasmas, for discharges with the ILW, but the data points are quite scattered and the ILW discharges have, in general, a lower temperature than the CW discharges, which makes the comparison difficult. Therefore, it is too early to definitely tell anything about a possible improvement of the fuel dilution levels after the installation of the ILW.

It has been the purpose of this PhD program to determine whether current laboratory-based methods of investigating Atmospherically-Induced Stress Corrosion Cracking (AISCC) of austenitic Stainless Steels (SS) are adequate in modelling realistic corrosion processes within a marine aerosol environment. Results obtained throughout the study have sought to address three key aims. Mainly, to understand the nature and behaviour of primary marine aerosol containing organic matter present within oceanic surface waters, the interfacial interactions of such aerosol droplets deposited on to austenitic stainless steels and, ultimately, their impact upon AISCC processes. Based upon the work conducted during this research, several conclusions may be deduced. The presence of primary organic components within a sea-salt aerosol leads to a reduction in surface tension at the liquid-vapour interface; highlighting the surface-active nature of algal exudates. Surface-active constituents also have the potential to aggregate at the liquid-solid interface. The inclusion of exudates, therefore, has the potential to maintain an electrolytic environment on an austenitic steel substrate for an elongated time period under ambient conditions. Following subsequent evaporation, organically-enriched seawater droplets typically produce an organic surface film. The results of these interfacial studies have informed AISCC measurements using U-bend specimens, which demonstrate a correlation between cracking and droplet size. Furthermore, the limiting factor for AISCC may not be a function of deposition density as previously thought but rather of droplet surface area.