Doctoral Thesis on Nuclear Forensics

Anna Vesterlund
Anna Vesterlund

 

 

 

 

 

 


Anna Vesterlund, researcher at FOI (Totalförsvarets forskningsinstitut), recently defended her doctoral thesis on “Method Development for Signatures in Nuclear Material for Nuclear Forensic Purposes” at Chalmers.

Nuclear forensics is a scientific discipline where signatures in nuclear and other radioactive material are investigated and evaluated in order to aid in criminal investigations concerning these materials. Examples of signatures that may be useful are the age and isotopic composition of the nuclear material and trace elements in the material. In order for evidence to hold up in court, the information extracted from forensic investigations need to be accurate and precise.

Anna’s work shows some possibilities and limitations of using two common techniques for measurements of nuclear material and other radioactive material: gamma spectrometry for acquiring signatures in nuclear material and inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry for lanthanide measurements in uranium rich material that can be used to track the geological origin of uranium.

Two quick questions for Anna:

What made you interested in nuclear forensics? Measurements performed in a nuclear forensic context have high requirements for confidence and scrutiny. This increased level of difficulty in performing such measurements were intriguing to me.

What areas of application do you foresee for your discovery? Besides the increased capability to perform nuclear forensic investigations in Sweden I believe that my work on data evaluation may be useful, not only to radioanalytical chemists but to many analytical chemists in general.

Download Anna Vesterlund’s Doctoral Thesis here: Thesis Anna Vesterlund.

Uranium pellets
Uranium pellets

Networking and collaboration

At the recently conducted SAINT Workshop, fifteen participants from the SAINT community got together to learn more about each other and the research projects they are currently conducting. The workshop started with lunch and then SAINT director Christian Ekberg kicked off a series of presentations made by the different SAINT members.

Everyone was encouraged to engage in dialogue by asking questions and learning more about each other’s projects. Even when the research fields are narrow, new perspectives give rise to further discussions. Discussions that continued in the evening over dinner.

The second day focused on collaboration in education. Christophe Demaziere from Chalmers presented the concept of “flipped classroom” and other delegates presented their experiences from new pedagogical approaches. As many were interested in teaching methodology, there was not enough time to discuss collaboration.

In the workshop follow-up questionnaire it was evident that SAINT members want to take time to discuss collaboration opportunities further within research as well as education. The SAINT management team is encouraged by this feedback to start planning future workshops and/or meetings to further the process of clarifying what areas SAINT should focus on and how we can collaborate going forward.

Photos from the workshop can be seen here:

New additions to SAINT

We are happy to acknowledge new members to SAINT. During the summer, Centre for Radiation Protection Research at Stockholm University has joined us. We welcome professor Andrzej Wojcik and his team at the Department of Molecular Biosciences, The Wenner-Gren Institute (MBW).

This autumn, Lund University and University of Gothenburg will follow, with representatives from both nuclear physics and medical radiation physics. Research collaborations and contact persons will be presented on the SAINT website shortly.

Prof. Tomoko M. Nakanishi Honorary Doctor at Chalmers 2019

Tomoko M Nakanishi is awarded honorary doctorate at Chalmers 2019. She is recognised for her interdisciplinary research on plant physiology, and developing pioneering new imaging methods. Tomoko M. Nakanishi is a professor at the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Laboratory of Radio-Plant Physiology, The University of Tokyo, Japan. 

Tell us a little about your collaboration with Swedish scientists regarding radiation research.

Since there are superb scientists in nuclear physics, nuclear techniques, and chemistry in Chalmers University of Technology, I got so many important comments and suggestions from them on my studies, since I began to use neutron beams, about 20 years ago. And then, especially after the Fukushima nuclear accident, we challenged to perform collaborative research and education for radio-ecology.

What would you say is the biggest challenge where radiation studies might hold an answer right now?

Radiation is an indispensable tool and cannot be replaced with any other means. It opens new fields in studies and in industries. The field of application and the market size is steadily increasing in the society now but how to communicate or convince the preference and importance of radiation usage to the public people is the largest problem and it is the challenge for both researchers and the industry people. But we are gradually making progress though showing the marvelous research results using radiation.

You have been active in increasing the public knowledge in Japan about the impact and risks of radiation, not least in connection to the Fukushima-accident. Can you tell us about your experience from this work?

Many people are afraid of radiation because it is invisible. However, using radiation we could visualize images which we usually cannot see. For example, using a neutron beam, I could present water specific image of living plants, even the roots embedded in soil, too. When 137Cs is applied to water culture solution with soil, Cs is firmly adsorbed in soil and the plants cannot absorb 137Cs. To visualize the risk of plant contamination is an easy method to understand the situation and provides relief to the people. The water images of flowers are especially beautiful and give a strong impact and favorable impression of neutron beam usage to many people.

You have visited us a couple of times and also hosted Chalmers researchers. Could you share some thoughts about our radiation research? Where are we strong and where must we improve?

There are two points. One is the necessity of a long-range study for radioecology, and the other one is more utilization of radiation and radioisotopes is recommended, which will surely lead to innovation of the research. The former one means, one of the main targeted radionuclide, Cs-137, in radioecology has a very long half-life, 30 years. We should continue this study to understand the effect of a possible nuclear accident in future generations. The latter means, there are not so many well-developed studies, which make most of the radiation or radioisotopes. For example, in the biological field, fluorescent imaging is now overwhelming and many new findings are reported. But imaging under light conditions is not possible and numerical treatment of the image is very difficult in fluorescent imaging. So both fluorescent and radiation imaging should be developed further.

Will you visit Chalmers in a near future?

Of course, I will surely visit Chalmers again. But right now, since I got a new job as a president of another University in Tokyo from this spring, I cannot decide the date right now. But when I will know about the situation in my new office, I would like to visit Chalmers. In my capacity as a foreign member of IVA, I also plan to attend the Annual Gathering in October, especially that this year is the 100th anniversary of the foundation of IVA.

An engineering program focused on nuclear power starts this autumn at Uppsala University

This is a translation of a press release from Vattenfall, which can be read in Swedish here

Forsmarks Kraftgrupp AB and Ringhals AB have signed an agreement with Uppsala University for a bachelor’s degree in nuclear technology. Forsmark and Ringhals support the program financially to secure highly qualified skills well into the 2040s.

– For the nuclear power industry, highly educated personnel are of great importance for a long time to come. Through this cooperation we can secure an essential part of the highly qualified skills that will be demanded in our operations in the 2040s, says Björn Linde, CEO of Forsmark and Ringhals.

The program has the first admission in autumn 2019 and the goal is to attract students on a broad front. The degree designation is ”Bachelor of Science in Nuclear Engineering”.

– More and more people realize the great importance of nuclear power in meeting our major hostile issue, the climate challenge. Nuclear power is a future industry and the education at Uppsala University as well as Vattenfallgymnasiet in Forsmark are important for continued high competence in our industry, says Christopher Eckerberg, HR manager at BA Generation, Vattenfall.

The funding is specifically targeted at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, IFA, and will mainly be used for costs related to the teaching staff, including competence increase through research at the department’s Department of Applied Nuclear Physics. Through the agreement, the institution takes responsibility for the implementation of the assignment and the content of the education.

– This support means that Uppsala University and the Swedish industry in collaboration create conditions to meet the great need for university engineers for efficient nuclear power also in the future. With the competence support that is also included, we from the academic side can ensure that the education lies in the absolute forefront of the research, says Ane Håkansson who is a professor at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Uppsala University.

Ane Håkansson believes that there will be good demand for the education among the students.

– My impression is that young people today have drawn attention to the conclusions of the IPCC and other researchers that nuclear power must become an essential part of the world’s electricity supply in order for the climate target to be fulfilled. Many engineering students also testify that nuclear technology is very interesting to work with, but that one still hesitates to choose nuclear power as its specialty. This is now about to change completely and we see a boost in interest,”says Ane Håkansson

Delivery of a unique set of simulation data to CORTEX for machine learning

As part of the Horizon 2020 CORTEX project led by Chalmers, and building upon some earlier successful tests on the applicability of using machine learning for anomaly characterization (reported at two conferences – see here and here), Chalmers has just delivered to the CORTEX partners a unique set of simulation data. The simulations cover an extremely wide range of possible scenarios of anomalies, such as vibrations of fuel assemblies, core barrel vibrations, control rod vibrations, perturbations generated at the inlet of the core and propagating with the coolant, and perturbations generated inside the core. All the simulations were performed using the CORE SIM+ neutronic core simulator (an extension of the CORE SIM tool), developed as part of CORTEX by Dr. Antonios Mylonakis.

The simulations cover all possible frequencies of the aforementioned scenarios and all possible locations of the perturbations. They represent more than 3 Tb of data. The machine learning experts from the University of Lincoln will now, together with Chalmers researchers, extend the machine learning techniques earlier developed so that the different scenarios can be identified from very few in-core and ex-core neutron detector signals, the anomaly characterized and localized. It is the first time ever that such a large set of simulation data representative of a commercial reactor and corresponding to all possible scenarios of stationary fluctuations were created. With this delivery, the CORTEX project has reached a new milestone.

Listen to Prof. Christophe Demaziere, Subatomic and Plasma Physics, Chalmers University of Technology talk about ”Anomaly Detection in Operation Nuclear Reactors: Overview of the Recent Advances in the CORETEX Project” on May 8, at Estrel Convention Center in Berlin.