Short Bio:
As a NSSPI student, Melek Derman worked with Dr. Sunil Chirayath to investigate nuclear safeguards approaches for Molten Salt Reactors (MSR). Derman modeled an MSR using the Monte Carlo radiation transport code, MCNP. She then analyzed some of the well-studied fission products generated in the fuel salt to determine if any could be used as an indirect signature for nuclear materials, especially plutonium monitoring and its mass estimation. Her results identified the correlations of plutonium mass with cesium-137 activity and the cesium-134 to cesium-137 activity ratio as methods that could be utilized to quantify plutonium mass at all fuel burnup levels, from low to ultra-high by using a high-purity (HPGe) detector. She also found that the activity ratio of europium-154 to cesium-137 could be applicable even for very high fuel burnup levels to estimate plutonium mass. However, it does not provide accurate results at ultra-high fuel burnup levels above 100 GWd/MTU due to its saturation.
During her time at NSSPI, Derman attended the SEE-LANL Non-destructive Assay Training course at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Safeguards Laboratory short course at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Derman graduated from Texas A&M in May with a Master of Science degree in nuclear engineering. Prior to joining NSSPI, she earned a B.S. degree in Physics from Akdeniz University in Turkiye and a B.A. in Business Administration from Anadolu University. After graduation, she plans to continue her studies and pursue a Ph.D.
NSSPI Publications:
- M. Derman, "Nuclear Safeguards Feasibility Study for a Molten Salt Reactor Using MCNP Modeling and Simulations", M.S. Thesis, Nuclear Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX (2024).