Joel McDuffee

A flame azalea blooming in bright orange on the top of Roam Mountain neat the Appalachian Trail. In the far distance, a cone of heavy rain is falling from a dark cloud onto a tall mountain.

One more picture from our Roan Mountain excursion. This flaming azalea was in full bloom on the Appalachian Trail near Carvers Gap. If you look closely, you’ll see a rainstorm on the mountain behind.

A field of pink rhododendron blooms in front of a line of green pine trees with the eastern mountain range in the far distance,

A paved trail through an area destroyed by a microburst from hurricane Hellene. Many dead trees lie on their side. Thick clouds are in the background.new green plants are emerging on the side of the trail.

A rhododendron shrub covered in pink blooms. There are so many bees on it that it sounds like the shrub itself is buzzing. There is a line of tall pines in the background under a blue sky full of white clouds.

We went to Roan Mountain yesterday at the height of the rhododendron bloom, and it did not disappoint. But the Helene damaged areas were a striking contrast. Storm microbursts destroyed certain areas but left neighboring spots untouched.

Walt Whitman wrote about baseball in 1846 in the Brooklyn Eagle, so it’s at least older than that.

Very sorry to hear what y’all are going through. Far less serious but related example: for many migraine sufferers, the first sign of a migraine is the inability to recognize you have one. You know you’re hurting and you know you get migraines, but you just can’t put it together.

Sorry— late to the game but you might look into nuclear materials research, isotope production, or neutron scattering research. Both Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory have research reactors with large programs. Most any National lab will have nuclear research programs.

Congratulations!

Spell it "doughnought" (meaning a zero or "nought" made from dough) or modernize it altogether to "donut," but I can see no case at all for going only halfway to "doughnut."

Har!

Thanks for asking! HFIR is an entirely peaceful use facility. Our 3 major missions are neutron scattering for basic research, isotope production mostly for medical uses, and fuels and materials research. One of the major things we will be doing with this position is to convert our fuel to LEU.

7 Fast Facts About the High Flux Isotope Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory 7 fast facts on the High Flux Isotope Reactor—one of the nation's top facilities in producing medical- and industry-grade isotopes.

If you're into nuclear thermal-hydraulics, you won't find a more interesting system to work on. It's a fascinating machine. If you're interested, feel free to reach out. 6/6

Here's more about HFIR: www.energy.gov/ne/articles/...

That's an entire swimming pool volume that we push into the vessel every minute. The flow rate is about 50 feet per second. With a 2' core length, the transit time for the coolant is just 0.04 seconds, and in that short time the temperature goes up 35ºF.
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If we just had straight plates, the coolant channel would be larger near the outer radius and all the coolant flow would go there. The curved plates also provide hydraulic stability in the turbulent flow. How much flow? 16,000 gallons per minute. No, I didn't forget a decimal point. 4/6

A photo of the top of the fuel in the High Flux Isotope Reactor. There are hundreds of individual fuel plates, each one curved so that the coolant gap between plates is constant going from the inner to the outer radius.

How do we keep it cool with all that power? Using what I think is one of the coolest features of HFIR and one that is rare in the nuclear reactor world -- involute fuel plates! There are hundreds of individual fuel plates, and each is curved so that the coolant gap is constant everywhere.
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Photo of a fuel element being taken out of the High Flux Isotope Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The element is glowing with blue/violet Cherenkov radiation.

HFIR is a special for a lot of reasons, but the main one is a ridiculously high power density. We generate 85 MW in a volume equal to maybe a half of a 55 gal drum. High power density means high neutron density, which is how we make critical medical isotopes that can't be made anywhere else.
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I'm looking to hire a thermal-hydraulic analyst to work with me supporting the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, so I decided to make a thread about why you should be interested if that's you!
jobs.ornl.gov/job/Oak-Ridg...

#NukeSky 🧵1/6

This was shared with us and made us smile! 😊

*lying, not laying. I always get the wrong.

A female cardinal sits comfortably on the side of a full bird feeder with his back to the camera. There are trees in the background.

I filled my bird feeders for the first time in a couple of weeks due to travel. This cardinal was the first to find it, and he’s sitting on his personal hoard, unbothered, like a dragon laying on his gold.

A distant view of highlands situated in the mountains from a local rock outcrop.

A closeup view of A large waterfall.

A view of highlands from Main Street showing shops and old hotels.

A view from underneath a large waterfall.

My wife and I honeymooned in Highlands NC 30 years ago (plus a few days). We’re here again for a short weekend trip. It’s a pretty little tourist town with nice restaurants and some of the best waterfalls you’ve ever seen.

Leaving the American Nuclear Society’s winter meeting today. It was great to see a lot of old friends once again and to make a few new ones.

Hi Manuel! I’m a nuclear engineer and my research is made not in nuclear materials and thermal hydraulics

scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=e...

My ANS student conference was at TAMU. It was a fun trip and I had a great time. I’m thankful there are no pictures and that smart phones and social media hadn’t been invented yet.

Looking forward to the ANS winter meeting this week. I’ll be hanging out mostly in ATH. #ANSMeeting #ANSWinter

Here are a couple of my favorite pictures. I’m the one hamming it up on the nose of the raft. This is on the Ocoee River from a couple years ago.

This was a couple of weeks ago in Cades Cove, GSMNP. We’ve been fortunate to see bears several times this year.

Debord falls in Frozen Head State Park from a couple weeks ago vs last fall. Amazing difference! Tennessee has fantastic state parks.