Title:

National Criticality Experiments Research Center: Capabilities and Experiments

Speaker:

Mr. Jesson Hutchinson

Affiliation:

Los Alamos National Laboratory

When:

Thursday, February 21, 2013 at 11:00:00 AM   Add to Calendar

Where:

Boggs Building, Room 3-47

Host:

Dr. Nolan Hertel
nolan.hertel@me.gatech.edu
404-894-3601

Abstract

The National Criticality Experiments Research Center (NCERC) is located at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) and operated by Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). NCERC maintains a substantial special nuclear material inventory and expertise to support a variety of nuclear security missions, including nuclear criticality safety research and training, nuclear emergency response, nuclear nonproliferation, and support for other government agencies that require hands-on access to significant quantities of nuclear material in numerous configurations. Operations conducted at NCERC include both subcritical and critical experiments with the ability to measure a wide variety of nuclear properties to meet sponsor needs. This talk will provide an overview of NCERC including four critical assembly machines as well as subcritical nuclear material handling and measurement.

Biography

Jesson Hutchinson is a nuclear engineer in the Advanced Nuclear Technology Group (NEN-2) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). His work includes critical and subcritical measurements with large quantities of nuclear material. In particular his research has been focused on correlated neutron data measured on subcritical systems. He has performed measurements and simulations to support detector development and validation. He also performs criticality safety work to support hands-on operations with nuclear material. Jesson was a former nuclear engineering student at Georgia Tech, graduating with a BS in 2004 and MS in 2005.