Monte Carlo Simulations for a Preliminary Design of TRIGA IPR-R1 PGAA Facility

In this paper, the evaluation of a preliminary design of a PGAA （prompt gamma activation analysis） facility based on Monte Carlo simulations is presented and discussed. The implementation of the PGAA method at the CDTN （nuclear technology development centre） would increase the applications of the TRIGA reactor. The preliminary design is based on a quasi vertical hollow cylinder （called neutron extractor） in the reactor pool to extract the neutron flux. This study evaluates the neutron flux in the upper position of the cylinder in the suggested position of the samples to be analyzed by the PGAA. The calculations of the radioactive capture reaction rates and of the detection limits for some isotopes were performed. Through all these calculations, the feasibility of the application of the PGAA method at the IPR-R1 installations was evaluated. According to the obtained results, it can be concluded that is possible to apply the PGAA method at the IPR-R1 reactor, even with its design restrictions.

Numerical simulation and data assimilation of the water-energy cycle over semiarid northeastern China

The default fractional vegetation cover and terrain height were replaced by the estimated fractional vegetation cover, which was calculated by the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index （NDVI） of Earth Observing System Moderate-Resolution Im- aging Spectroradiometer （EOS-MODIS） and the Digital Elevation Model of the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission （SRTM） system. The near-surface meteorological elements over northeastern China were assimilated into the three-dimensional varia- tional data assimilation system （3DVar） module in the Weather Research and Forecasting （WRF） model. The structure and daily variations of air temperature, humidity, wind and energy fields over northeastern China were simulated using the WRF model. Four groups of numerical experiments were performed, and the simulation results were analyzed of latent heat flux, sensible heat flux, and their relationships with changes in the surface energy flux due to soil moisture and precipitation over different surfaces. The simulations were compared with observations of the stations Tongyu, Naiman, Jinzhou, and Miyun from June to August, 2009. The results showed that the WRF model achieves high-quality simulations of the diurnal charac- teristics of the surface layer temperature, wind direction, net radiation, sensible heat flux, and latent heat flux over semiarid northeastern China in the summer. The simulated near-surface temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed were improved in the data assimilation case （Case 2） compared with control case （Case 1）. The simulated sensible heat fluxes and surface heat fluxes were improved by the land surface parameterization case （Case 3） and the combined case （Case 4）. The simulated tem- poral variations in soil moisture over the northeastern arid areas agree well with observations in Case 4, but the simulated pre- cipitation should be improved in the WRF model. This study could improve the land surface parameters by utilizing remote sensing data and could further improve atmospheric elements with a data assimilation system. This work provides an effective attempt at combining multi-source data with different spatial and temporal scales into numerical simulations. The assimilation datasets generated by this work can be applied to research on climate change and environmental monitoring of add lands, as well as research on the formation and stability of climate over semiarid areas.