Wilson - Trident

Trident Thomas J. Wilson, Systems major (2016/17)

Thesis: Modeling the Effects of Meteorological Conditions on the Neutron Flux

MIDN Wilson developed a model that predicts the relationship between the environmental neutron flux and barometric pressure, temperature, and humidity from experimental data collected in Annapolis. The objective of the study was to aid in homeland security applications and predict significant neutron counts fluctuations related to the changing weather conditions that were masking effective detection of special nuclear material at location.

I co-advised MIDN Wilson and assisted with the experimental set. Assistant Professor M. G. Millett and Professor (Ret) M. E. Nelson, Nuclear Engineering, were the experts on neutron detection. VADM (Ret) C. J. Leidig, Mechanical Engineering, was the liaison with various agencies and was involved in security matters. Assistant Professor D.N. VanDerwerken, Mathematics, oversaw statistical modeling. LT K. J. Barron, Office of the Superintendent, was responsible for the policies related to the neutron detection.

Conference paper Hardware and Software Simulation Technology (DITRA) 2017 “Modeling the Effects of Meteorological Conditions on the Neutron Flux”, HEART conference proceedings, Denver, CO

Journal paper “Meteorologically Driven Neutron Background Prediction for Homeland Security”, submitted to IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science. Note: This paper has been written by faculty, (VanDerwerken, Millet, Nelson and Avramov-Zamurovic) using the data MIDN Wilson collected.