<p> A new technique has be~n developed for the measurement of fast neutron total cross-sections in the range 0.8 -> 3.0 MeV using the fast neutrons from a reactor. The method was used to obtain the cross-section of six elements in the 2s-1d shell. Various analytical techniques have been applied to measure the behavior of the average cross-sections and delineate the properties of the observed resonances. From these results the resonances are confirmed as examples of "doorway" states, and conclusions are drawn about the distributions of the parameters of these states. The average properties are related to nuclear models of the origin and characteristics of states of high excitation in the target nuclides.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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No / Concrete filled steel tube (CFST) columns are becoming increasingly popular due to the advantages they offered. They are not only considered aesthetically pleasing but can also offer significant improvement in axial capacity without increases in crosssectional area being required. Elliptical steel hollow sections represent a recent and rare addition to the range of cross-sections available to structural engineers, however, despite widespread interest in their application, a lack of verified design guidance is inhibiting uptake. The use of elliptical steel hollow section with concrete infill is new and innovative, not only provides the advantage mentioned above, but also on the basis of both architectural appeal and structural efficiency. The aim of this paper is to investigate the behaviour of the elliptical CFSTs under axial loading. A total of 12 specimens were tested with wall thicknesses of 4 mm, 5 mm, 6.3 mm and concrete core strength of 30 MPa. This paper reported on the behaviour of concrete filled elliptical hollow sections under axial load. The effect of the wall thickness of the steel section, the bond between steel and concrete and the concrete confinement are presented.

The research presented in this thesis focuses on the use of feedback control for lowering acoustic levels within launch vehicle payload fairings. Due to the predominance of conical geometries within payload fairings, our work focused on the analytical modeling of conical shrouds using modal and impedance based models. Incorporating an actuating boundary condition within a sealed enclosure, resonant frequencies and mode shapes were developed as functions of geometric and mechanical parameters of the enclosure and the actuator. Using a set of modal approximations, a set of matrix equations have been developed describing the homogeneous form of the wave equation. Extending to impedance techniques, the resonant frequencies of the structure were again calculated, providing analytical validation of each model. Expanding this impedance model to first order form, the acoustic model has been coupled with actuator dynamics yielding a complete model of the system relating pressure to control voltage. Using this coupled state-space model, control design using Linear Quadratic Regulator and Positive Position Feedback techniques has also been presented. Using the properties of LQR analysis, an analytical study into the degree of coupling between actuator and cavity as a function of actuator resonance has been conducted. Constructing an experimetnal test-bed for model validation and control implementation, a small sealed enclosure was built and outfitted with sensors. Placing a control speaker at the small end of the cone the large opening was sealed with a rigid termination. An internal acoustic source was used to excite the system and pressure measurements were captured using an array of microphones located throughout the conic section. Using the parameters of this experimental test-bed, comparisons were made between LQR and PPF control designs. Using an impulse disturbance to excite the system, LQR simulations predicted reductions of 53.2% below those of the PPF design, while the control voltages corresponding to these reductions were 43.8% higher for LQR control. Actual application of these control designs showed that the ability to manually set PPF gains made this design technique much more convenient for actual implementation. Yielding overall attenuation of 38% with control voltages below 200 mV, single-channel low authority control was seen to be an effective solution for low frequency noise reduction. Control was then expanded to a larger geometry representative of Minotaur fairings. Designing strictly from experimental results, overall reductions of 38.5% were observed. Requiring slightly larger control voltages than those of the conical cavity, peak voltages were still found to be less than 306 mV. Extrapolating to higher excitation levels of 140 dB, overall power requirements for 38.5% pressure reductions were estimated to be less than 16 W. / Master of Science

The present state of modeling radio-induced effects at the cellular level neglects to account for the microscopic inhomogeneity of the nucleus from the non-aqueous contents by approximating the entire cellular nucleus as a homogenous medium of water. Charged particle track-structure calculations utilizing this principle of superposition are thereby neglecting to account for approximately 30% of the molecular variation within the nucleus. To truly understand what happens when biological matter is irradiated, charged particle track-structure calculations need detailed knowledge of the secondary electron cascade, resulting from interactions with not only the primary biological component – water – but also the non-aqueous contents, down to very low energies. This paper presents developments for a novel approach, which to our knowledge has never been done before, to reducing the homogenous water approximation. The purpose of our work is to develop of a completely self-consistent computational method for predicting molecule-specific ionization, excitation, and scattering cross sections in the very low energy regime that can be applied in a condensed history Monte Carlo track-structure code. The present methodology begins with the calculation of a solution to the many-body Schrödinger equation and proceeds to use Monte Carlo methods to calculate the perturbations in the internal electron field to determine the aforementioned processes. Results are computed for molecular water in the form of linear energy loss, secondary electron energies, and ionization-to-excitation ratios and compared against the low energy predictions of the GEANT4-DNA physics package of the Geant4 simulation toolkit.

Thesis (Ph.D.); Submitted to the Catholic Univ. of America, Washington, DC (US); 1 May 2003. / Published through the Information Bridge: DOE Scientific and Technical Information. "JLAB-PHY-03-40" "DOE/ER/40150-2764" Brian Carnahan. 05/01/2003. Report is also available in paper and microfiche from NTIS.

La thèse a essentiellement été motivée par la volonté croissante de maîtriser les incertitudes des données nucléaires, pour des raisons de sûreté nucléaire. Elle vise en particulier les sections efficaces indispensables aux calculs neutroniques des réacteurs rapides au sodium de Génération IV (RNR-Na), et les moyens permettant de les évaluer.Le principal objectif de la thèse est de fournir et montrer l’intérêt de nouveaux outils permettant de réaliser des évaluations cohérentes, avec des incertitudes maîtrisées et fiables. Pour répondre aux attentes, différentes méthodes ont été implémentées dans le cadre du code CONRAD, développé au CEA de Cadarache, au Département d’Étude des Réacteurs.Après l’état des lieux et la présentation des différents éléments nécessaires pour effectuer une évaluation, il est présenté des résolutions stochastiques de l’inférence Bayésienne. Elles permettent de fournir d’une part, des informations supplémentaires à l’évaluateur par rapport à la résolution analytique et d’autre part, de valider cette dernière. Les algorithmes ont été testés avec succès à travers plusieurs cas, malgré des temps de calcul plus longs faute aux méthodes de type Monte Carlo.Ensuite, ce travail a rendu possible, dans CONRAD, de prendre en compte des contraintes dites microscopiques. Elles sont définies par l’ajout ou le traitement d’informations additionnelles par rapport à l’évaluation traditionnelle. Il a été développé un algorithme basé sur le formalisme des multiplicateurs de Lagrange pour résoudre les problèmes de continuité entre deux domaines en énergies traitées par deux théories différentes. De plus, d’autres approches sont présentées, avec notamment l’utilisation de la marginalisation, permettant soit de compléter une évaluation existante en ajoutant des matrices de covariance, soit de considérer une incertitude systématique pour une expérience décrite par deux théories. Le bon fonctionnement des différentes méthodes implémentées est illustré par des exemples, dont celui de la section efficace totale de l’238U.Enfin, les dernières parties de la thèse se focalisent sur le retour des expériences intégrales, par méthodes d’assimilation de données intégrales. Cela permet de réduire les incertitudes sur les sections efficaces d’intérêt pour les réacteurs rapides. Ce document se clôt par la présentation de quelques résultats clefs sur les sections efficaces de l’238U et du 239Pu, avec la considération d’expériences comme PROFIL et PROFIL-2 dans Phénix ou encore Jezebel. / The thesis has been motivated by a wish to increase the uncertainty knowledge on nuclear data, for safety criteria. It aims the cross sections required by core calculation for sodium fast reactors (SFR), and new tools to evaluate its.The main objective of this work is to provide new tools in order to create coherent evaluated files, with reliable and mastered uncertainties. To answer those problematic, several methods have been implemented within the CONRAD code, which is developed at CEA of Cadarache.After a summary of all the elements required to understand the evaluation world, stochastic methods are presented in order to solve the Bayesian inference. They give the evaluator more information about probability density and they also can be used as validation tools. The algorithms have been successfully tested, despite long calculation time.Then, microscopic constraints have been implemented in CONRAD. They are defined as new information that should be taken into account during the evaluation process. An algorithm has been developed in order to solve, for example, continuity issues between two energy domains, with the Lagrange multiplier formalism. Another method is given by using a marginalization procedure, in order to either complete an existing evaluation with new covariance or add systematic uncertainty on an experiment described by two theories. The algorithms are well performed along examples, such the 238U total cross section.The last parts focus on the integral data feedback, using methods of integral data assimilation to reduce the uncertainties on cross sections. This work ends with uncertainty reduction on key nuclear reactions, such the capture and fission cross sections of 238U and 239Pu, thanks to PROFIL and PROFIL-2 experiments in Phénix and the Jezebel benchmark.

Les critères de sûreté exigés pour les réacteurs rapides au sodium de Generation IV (RNR-Na) se traduisent par la nécessité d'incertitudes réduites et maîtrisées sur les grandeurs neutroniques d'intérêt. Une part de ces incertitudes provient des données nucléaires et, dans le cas des RNR-Na, des données nucléaires du sodium, qui présentent des différences significatives entre les bibliothèques internationales (JEFF-3.1.1, ENDF/B-VII.0, JENDL-4.0). L'objectif de cette thèse est d'améliorer la connaissance sur les données nucléaires du sodium afin de mieux calculer les paramètres neutroniques des RNR-Na et fournir des incertitudes fiables. Après un état des lieux des présentes données du Na23, l'impact des différences est quantifié notamment sur les effets en réactivité de vidange du sodium, calculés avec des outils neutroniques déterministe et stochastique. Les résultats montrent qu'il est nécessaire de ré-évaluer entièrement les données nucléaires du sodium. Plusieurs développements ont été effectués dans le code d'évaluation Conrad, pour intégrer de nouveaux modèles de réactions nucléaires et leurs paramètres ainsi que pour permettre de procéder à des ajustements avec des mesures intégrales. Suite à ces développements, l'analyse des données différentielles et la propagation des incertitudes expérimentales avec Conrad ont été réalisées. Le domaine des résonances résolues a été étendu à 2 MeV et le domaine du continuum débute directement au-delà de cette énergie. Une nouvelle évaluation du Na23 et les matrices de covariances multigroupes associées ont été générées pour de futurs calculs d'incertitudes. La dernière partie de la thèse se focalise sur le retour des expériences intégrales de vidange du sodium, par des méthodes d'assimilation de données intégrales, afin de réduire les incertitudes sur les sections efficaces du sodium. Ce document se clôt sur des calculs d'incertitudes pour des RNR-Na de type industriel, qui montrent une meilleure prédiction de leurs paramètres neutroniques avec la nouvelle évaluation. / The safety criteria to be met for Generation IV sodium fast reactors (SFR) require reduced and mastered uncertainties on neutronic quantities of interest. Part of these uncertainties come from nuclear data and, in the particular case of SFR, from sodium nuclear data, which show significant differences between available international libraries (JEFF-3.1.1, ENDF/B-VII.0, JENDL-4.0). The objective of this work is to improve the knowledge on sodium nuclear data for a better calculation of SFR neutronic parameters and reliable associated uncertainties. After an overview of existing Na23 data, the impact of the differences is quantified, particularly on sodium void reactivity effets, with both deterministic and stochastic neutronic codes. Results show that it is necessary to completely re-evaluate sodium nuclear data. Several developments have been made in the evaluation code Conrad, to integrate new nuclear reactions models and their associated parameters and to perform adjustments with integral measurements. Following these developments, the analysis of differential data and the experimental uncertainties propagation have been performed with Conrad. The resolved resonances range has been extended up to 2 MeV and the continuum range begins directly beyond this energy. A new Na23 evaluation and the associated multigroup covariances matrices were generated for future uncertainties calculations. The last part of this work focuses on the sodium void integral data feedback, using methods of integral data assimilation to reduce the uncertainties on sodium cross sections. This work ends with uncertainty calculations for industrial-like SFR, which show an improved prediction of their neutronic parameters with the new evaluation.