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Engineering Physics 714 - Nuclear Reactor Safety Design

Announcements

• This page contains legacy information for a previous offering of this course. It does not apply to the current offering of this course.
• It was also delivered to Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand in 1998 (archive copy) and used as a basis for the UNENE course UN0803.
• This course was offered September to December, 2009 by Victor Snell. Please contact Victor Snell for course information.

Course description:

Nuclear reactor safety design and analysis principles and practice. Probability theory, failure rates, availability, reliability, test frequencies, dormant and active systems, and probability evaluation for simple systems. Historical and philosophical basis for nuclear safety, safety criteria, initiating events, fault trees and event trees, safety analysis.

Course Notes:

Here are the course notes for the current session. Revisions and additions are made as the course progresses as denoted by the date in italics. [See also the offical departmental course outline. It is not quite up to date but is relevant nonetheless.]
• Course Outline
  • Forward, Acknowledgements (pdf 116kb) new as of 2009.09.15
  • Expectations (pdf 391kb) (presentation) new as of 2009.09.16
  • Outline and Schedule (pdf 98kb) new as of 2009.09.15
• Project
  • Ideas for Projects (pdf 35kb) new as of 2009.09.15
  • Scope Guideline (pdf 5kb)
• Chapter 1 - Introduction (Snell)
  • Text (pdf 280kb) new as of 2009.09.15, minor revision 2009.09.29
  • Lecture 1 Slides (pdf 771kb) new as of 2009.09.16
• Chapter 2 - Design Basis Accidents (Snell)
  • Text (pdf 8.1Mb) new as of 2009.09.23, minor revision 2009.09.29
  • Lecture 2 Slides (pdf 1.36Mb) new as of 2009.09.23
• Chapter 3 - Case Studies (Snell)
  • Text (pdf 550kb)
  • Lecture 3 Case Studies Slides (pdf 1.0Mb) new as of 2009.10.24
  • Lecture 4 Case Studies Slides cont'd (pdf 1.0Mb) new as of 2009.10.24
• Chapter 4 - Probability Tools and Techniques
  • Text (pdf 325kb) new as of 2009.10.13
  • Lecture 5 Probability Slides (pdf 576kb) new as of 2009.10.24
  • Bayes Theorem - resource material, including a short video
• Chapter 5 - Safety Systems
  • Text (pdf 2.6Mb) new as of 2009.10.28
  • Lecture 6 (pdf 672kb) - Shutdown Systems new as of 2009.10.28
  • Lecture 7 (pdf 1.1Mb) - Heat Removal Systems new as of 2009.10.28
• Chapter 6- Safety Goals
  • Text (pdf 927kb) new as of 2009.11.03
  • Lecture 8 (pdf 666kb) new as of 2009.11.03
• Chapter 7 - Accident Analysis
  • Text (pdf 2.3Mb) new as of 2009.11.10
  • Lecture 9 (pdf 2.3Mb) new as of 2009.11.18
  • Lecture 10 (pdf 1.2Mb) new as of 2009.11.18
• Chapter 8 - Technology of Accident Analysis
  • Text (pdf 1.2Mb) new as of 2009.11.22
  • Lecture11 (pdf 311kb) new as of 2009.11.28
  • Lecture 12 (pdf 642kb) new as of 2009.11.23
• Chapter 9 - Whither Safety
  • Text (pdf 1.4Mb) - IAEA new as of 2009.11.22
  • Text (pdf 1.6Mb) - Passive Designs new as of 2009.11.23
  • Lecture 13 (pdf 1.6Mb)
• Supplementary reading
  • IAEA-NS-R-1 (pdf 201kb) - Safety of Nuclear Power Plants: Design - Safety Requirements
  • ICONE 12-49287 (pdf 145kb) - The Probability and Management of Human Error, Romney B. Duffey and John W. Saull, Proceedings of ICONE12: 12th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering , April 25-29, 2004, Virginia, USA
• ...

Interesting and Informative Links and Reference Information

• Teaching matters - helpful general information on teaching and learning for the student and the educator
• Reactor physics code downloads
• Looking for FORTRAN information? See the Downloads page for engineering software and compilers, etc.
• Computing tools - some suggestions.
• Chernobyl information
• Ionizing Radiation in the 20th Centry, by Zbigniew Jaworowski (pdf 1161kb)
• Some of course notes have rather old values for the consequences of radiation doses. Here are the ICRP-60 recommendations summarized FYI. Source: "1990 Recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection", adopted by the Commission in November 1990; ICRP Publication 60; Pergamon Press, Oxford.
• Davis-Besse reactor vessel head corrosion - a near miss. (pdf 461kb)
  
• Suggestions welcome.