Prof S Dixon
Applications accepted all year round
About the Project
The main objective of the project is to develop a non-contact, acoustic method for the in-situ measurement of the internal pressure of nuclear material storage cans. The student will assess how a pressure increase within a sealed can will change the frequencies of vibration for particular modes, and will investigate if these measurements can be used to infer changes of pressure over a range of interest, using bespoke acoustic sensors.
The UK’s stock of radioactive waste material is likely to remain in safe and secure storage for many years. The material is stored in stainless steel containers and the packages are at risk from a number of evolutionary processes which could affect the integrity of the package including external corrosion of the container, deterioration of the weld quality, and can pressurisation. The proposal addresses the risk of can pressurisation and seeks to develop a non-contact method of determining can pressure from acoustic measurements.
The University of Warwick has a long history in ultrasonics R&D. It was a founding academic member of the Research Centre for Non Destructive Evaluation (RCNDE) of which BNFL was a founding industrial member and NDA continues with this membership. On this 4 year iCASE PhD project, the student will develop skills in acoustics and ultrasonics and knowledge on the issues surrounding the storage of nuclear material, and will spend at least 3 months in total with the industrial partner to widen their skills and broaden their knowledge.
We will work with industrial partners (e.g. Sellafield and NNL) to demonstrate the development system on a mock-up rig of a nuclear material storage facility. The CIU has a track record for delivering impact from research - there are 3 separate spin-out companies from the CIU in areas of ultrasonic and electromagnetic NDT, EMATs, piezoelectric transducers, ultrasonic flow measurement and acoustics.
Supervisor: Prof. Steve Dixon, Warwick Ultrasound Group
Details of the department, application procedure and contacts can be found at
http://www.warwick.ac.uk/go/physicspg
The university’s online application system is at http://www.go.warwick.ac.uk/pgapply
Funding Notes
Due to funding restrictions full support for this 3.5year EPSRC-funded project (starting October 2011) is available to UK/EU applicants only. For the 2011/12 academic year, the successful candidate will receive a tax-free student stipend of £13,800, in addition to full-fees being paid for.
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