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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Remembering ANS member Gil Brown
Brown
The nuclear community is mourning the loss of Gilbert Brown, who passed away on July 11 at the age of 77 following a battle with cancer.
Brown, an American Nuclear Society Fellow and an ANS member for nearly 50 years, joined the faculty at Lowell Technological Institute—now the University of Massachusetts–Lowell—in 1973 and remained there for the rest of his career. He eventually became director of the UMass Lowell nuclear engineering program. After his retirement, he remained an emeritus professor at the university.
Sukesh Aghara, chair of the Nuclear Engineering Department Heads Organization, noted in an email to NEDHO members and others that “Gil was a relentless advocate for nuclear energy and a deeply respected member of our professional community. He was also a kind and generous friend—and one of the reasons I ended up at UMass Lowell. He served the university with great dedication. . . . Within NEDHO, Gil was a steady presence and served for many years as our treasurer. His contributions to nuclear engineering education and to this community will be dearly missed.”
Nicolas Woolstenhulme, Clint Baker, Colby Jensen, Daniel Chapman, Devin Imholte, Nate Oldham, Connie Hill, Spencer Snow
Nuclear Technology | Volume 205 | Number 10 | October 2019 | Pages 1251-1265
Critical Review | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2019.1590072
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Transient Reactor Test facility (TREAT) resumed operations in 2017 in order to reclaim its crucial role in nuclear-heated fuel safety research. TREAT’s historic era of operation (1959 to 1994) was best known for integral-scale testing of large fuel specimens/bundles under postulated reactor plant accident conditions, but TREAT also supported smaller-scale phenomena identification tests that elucidated fundamental behaviors and paved the way for these integral-scale tests. Advances in modern computational capabilities and a resurgence of interest in novel reactor technologies have created an opportunity for emphasizing modernized science-based and separate effects tests once again at TREAT. An innovative approach to this type of testing has been developed to leverage minor radioactivity built in during brief TREAT irradiations by arranging smaller fuel specimens in low-activation hardware so that they can be easily extracted and shipped for postirradiation examination within weeks. This recently established capability, termed the Minimal Activation Retrievable Capsule Holder (MARCH) irradiation vehicle system, includes capabilities for cost-effective simplified environment testing of centimeter-scale fuel samples of various geometries, temperature-controlled irradiations of millimeter-size samples for lower-length-scale model development, liquid metal–bonded heat sink capsules for controlling transient temperature response in fuel rodlets, and an innovative approach to high-throughput irradiation of transient sensors and instrumentation. The MARCH system’s capabilities will also set the foundation for fuel safety research performed in larger integral-scale test devices with coolant environments representing reactor plants. Based upon historic approaches, but modernized to meet current nuclear technology needs, these larger irradiation devices include flowing pressurized water (including the ability to depressurize to steam) as well liquid metal cooling loops for various fuel rod and small bundle specimens. This critical review describes the recently established MARCH system and current trajectory to enabling advanced transient science with a suite of irradiation test devices.
