Monday, August 9, 2010

Results

Here is the tables we constructed to compare the scenarios. We highlighted those which had the greatest effects.

 

REU Poster - Project Overview

Detailed Research Log 7/2/2010 - 8/10/2010


2 July 2010, Friday
Orientation day - met with Dr. Yazdani and got a brief description of the different projects
                           introduced to the other participants and professors
                           overview of the facilities
                           REU purpose and outcome described
6 July 2010, Tuesday
Met with Dr. Sattler at 10:30am in Rm 414 to discuss what we wanted to model in the Hotspot 2.07.1 program
given and went over two handouts on air pollution

7 July 2010, Wednesday
Met with Dr. Sattler at 9am went over handout of power point on air pollution meteorology and a handout of the Gaussian Dispersion model
Read chpt. 5 in the Practical Guide to Atmospheric Dispersion Modeling by D. Bruce Turner, CCM and Richard H. Schulze, P.E., QEP

8 July 2010, Thursday
Met with Dr.Sattler at 10:30am
brought laptops after lunch in order to start working in the Hotspot program
Met graduate student assistant, Arpita Gandhi, who introduced us to the Hotspot program

9 July 2010, Friday
Met with Dr. Sattler 9am to 2pm
went over power point of "plume rise" and "methods of determining dispersion parameters sigma y and sigma z"

12 July 2010, Monday
Met with Dr. Sattler 9am to 2pm
went over power point on "air pollution meteorology - winds"

13 July 2010, Tuesday
Met with Dr. Sattler 9am to 2pm
lectured on air pollution

14 July 2010, Wednesday
Met with Dr. Sattler 9am to 2pm
lecture covered inversion layers, first order chemical rxns, settling, wet and dry deposition, averaging time changes

15 July 2010, Thursday
Met with Sattler 8:30am - 12pm, given articles to read in order to determine parameters
Ethics workshop 1:30pm - 4:00pm

16 July 2010, Friday
Met with Sattler 1pm - 3pm, lecture

19 July 2010, Monday
Hotspot modeling 9am - 2pm
researched TEDE levels
explosion scenarios

20 July 2010, Tuesday
Hotspot modeling 9am - 2pm
explosion scenarios

21 July 2010, Wednesday
Hotspot modeling 9am - 2pm
explosion scenarios

22 July 2010, Thursday
Took a tour of the Holcim Cement Plant 8:30am - 3:00pm

23 July 2010, Friday
Hotspot modeling 9am - 2pm
evaluating inputs for explosion

26 July 2010, Monday
Hotspot modeling 9am - 2pm
fire scenarios

27 July 2010, Tuesday
Hotspot modeling 9am - 2pm
fire scenarios

28 July 2010, Wednesday
9am - 11:25am work with Hotspot
REU Assessment 12pm -1pm

29 July 2010, Thursday
Research Training workshop 9am - 3pm, Rady Room

30 July 2010, Friday
9am - 3pm, worked on Hotspot models
11am, met with Dr. Sattler to discuss progress of the project
Run through of the presentation

2 August 2010, Monday
9am - 2pm, finalizing parameters and organized the comparative tables of data, discussed final presentation

3 August 2010, Tuesday
9am - 2pm, worked from home on slides for presentation

4 August 2010, Wednesday
9am - 11am, worked on combining slides for final presentation
11am - 1pm, watched "Garbage: The Movie" Rm 100 in Nedderman
1:30pm - 3pm, continued working on final presentation
4pm, worked on poster

5 August 2010, Thursday
9am - 3pm, cleaned up the final presentation
worked on poster and reflection paper

6 August 2010, Friday
9am - 12pm, Designed web page for the REU program
1pm, cleaned up final presentation
2pm, met with Dr. Sattler, ran through the presentation and received feed back from Dr. Sattler

7 August 2010, Saturday
finished and submitted poster to Dr. Yazdani
worked on reflection paper

9 August 2010, Monday
finalize presentation for 8/10
finish working on the deliverables for the REU program

10 August 2010, Tuesday
Summer End workshop 9am - 3pm

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Week 5

Scenario Comparison

After the inputs had been evaluated and combination's of inputs, the worse case scenario was created for both an explosion and a fire involving each of the radionuclides, it was time to decide which of them had the greatest radiological consequence. The factors used to compare the consequences were as follows:
The Max TEDE
The Area of the inner, middle and outer contour
Dose equivalent of the organs including lungs, skin, and red marrow

Tables were made to compare the radionuclides for each situation. Radon continuously gave the worse case scenario, with Iridium a close second for two scenarios.

Week 4

Evaluating the inputs of the HotSpot Software

To create the ultimate worse case scenario we evaluated each of the inputs of the software. The following are the inputs of interest and all other were kept as defaults:

Source Term:
 Materials at Risk*
Damage Ratio*
Leakpath factor*
Depostion Velocity*
Airborne Fraction*
Respirable Fraction*
High Explosive*
Cloud top*

Meteorolgy
Stability Class*
Wind Speed*
  
Setup:
Terrain*
Groundshine*
TEDE Contour Values*

Each was evaluated with either a trial and error approach or with the help of other resources such as the EPA website and the HotSpot help line.

Week 3

HotSpot Software 2.07.1

This week we learned the hostpot sofware and how to use it. This software is designed to model radionuclides.
You can download this software for free at:

https://narac.llnl.gov/HotSpot/HotSpot.html 
To learn how to use the software we went over a couple of practice scenarios the software has and we also read over the user manual. 

We downloaded Google earth to use for mapping the contours created by hotspot.

Before we began modeling our scenario we had to decide what radionuclides we wanted to release. Based on the previous studies there a nine key radionuclides of interest or ones that are more likely to be involved in a terrorist attack due to factors such as portability, relatively low security, high levels of radioactivity, and physical and chemical forms. Out of the nine we modeled 5 of them, which included:

Cesium 137
Iridium 192
Plutonium 238
Radon 226
Strontium 90
 

 

Week 2

After getting the background information for air dispersion modeling it was time to start modeling for a terrorist attack. We read various articles in professional journals that had used the same air dispersion software we had planned to use. We also read one paper that had a similar objective to ours covering the development of realistic RDD scenarios and their radiological consequence analyses.This was very helpful in getting things going and having something to reference.

We then had a group discussion over what kind of scenario we wanted to model. We looked at numerous locations in the Dallas/Fort Worth area including downtown Dallas, downtown Fort Worth and the Cowboys stadium in Arlington. We also evaluated our options for method of delivery- train, plane, bus, or car. With these to factors in mind we tried to decide on an over all worse case yet realistic.


We choose to model a terrorist attack in downtown Dallas by car. This seemed realistic to use a car and also to choose downtown Dallas because it is densely populated.