Making R&D at MINT relevant to national development

This paper attempts to identify issues facing nuclear research centres by tracing the development of the Malaysian Institute for Nuclear Technology Research (MINT). Approaches taken to arrive at the strategies in the areas of research and technology development, cooperation and technology transfer, and commercialization are highlighted. Interspersed in that review are some of the issues that are then collated in the Issues section

Nuclear Energy: An Ethical Use of Resources

Energy is the lifeblood of development, but its amount is finite. It can neither be created nor destroyed; but it can be converted from one form to another. The conversion changes the state of the resources and the change generally is not reversible. Nuclear energy steadily contributes about sixteen percent to global total electricity demand. Its application for electricity production is expected to increase due to dwindling natural resources, concern for greenhouse gaseous emission, and the limited capability of renewable energy and biofuels to be major energy resources. Nuclear energy, however, is plagued with ever presence public perception issues, some are real some are due to misperceptions. The trio of accidents: Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and most recently, Fukushima, however has slightly dampened the prospect. Nuclear energy makes use of uranium, an element that has no peaceful applications other than to be used in nuclear power reactors to generate heat or neutrons, produce steam, and drive turbo-generators for electricity production. Other resources, such as oil, coal, and gas have multiplicity of uses that cannot be substituted by uranium. On that premise, this paper argues that the use of nuclear energy is an ethical choice. This choice overrides considerations such as waste, complexity, and safety that are often projected as reasons for avoiding it altogether. Those considerations are of scientific and engineering dimensions that mankind has to wrestle and overcome as the khalifah. In so doing, proper education and ethical use of knowledge become imperative.   ABSTRAK: Tenaga adalah nadi pembangunan, tetapi jumlahnya terbatas. Ia tidak boleh dicipta atau dimusnahkan; tetapi ia boleh ditukar dari satu bentuk ke bentuk lain. Pertukaran bentuk ini mengubah keadaan sumber tenaga dan perubahan tersebut tidak boleh ditukarbalik. Tenaga nuklear menyumbang kira-kira enam belas peratus kepada jumlah permintaan elektrik global. Keperluan tenaga elektrik dijangka meningkat kerana pengurangan sumber asli, kebimbangan atas pelepasan gas rumah hijau, dan keupayaan biofuel dan tenaga boleh diperbaharui untuk menjadi sumber tenaga utama. Namun begitu, tenaga nuklear sentiasa dibelenggu oleh isu-isu persepsi umum, sebahagiannya benar dan sebahagian lagi disebabkan oleh salah anggap. Ketiga-tiga kemalangan nuklear: Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, dan baharu-baharu ini, Fukushima, bagaimanapun menjejaskan sedikit prospek berkenaan. Tenaga nuklear menggunakan uranium, suatu unsur yang tidak mempunyai sebarang kegunaan aman selain daripada digunakan dalam reaktor nuklear untuk menjana neutron atau haba, menghasilkan wap, dan memacu turbo-generator yang mengeluarkan elektrik. Sumber-sumber lain seperti minyak, arang batu dan gas mempunyai pelbagai kegunaan yang tidak boleh digantikan oleh uranium. Atas hujjah itu, rencana ini mengutarakan bahawa penggunaan tenaga nuklear adalah pilihan yang beretika. Pilihan ini mengatasi pertimbangan-pertimbangan seperti sisa, kerumitan teknologi, dan keselamatan yang sering ditonjolkan sebagai alasan untuk mengelakkan sama sekali kegunaan tenaga nuklear. Pertimbangan-pertimbangan tersebut adalah dalam dimensi saintifik dan kejuruteraan yang manusia, sebagai khalifah, perlu tangani dan atasi. Dalam berbuat demikian, pendidikan yang sempurna dan penggunaan pengetahuan yang beretika menjadi penting.   Keywords-nuclear energy;greenhouse gas; renewable energy; ethical energy use; nuclear fuel; uranium; nuclear reactor

Modeling nuclear processes using simulink

Simulation and modeling are essential parts in the study of dynamic system behaviour. in nuclear engineering, simulation and modeling are important o assess the expected result of an experiment before the actual experiment is conducted or in the design of nuclear facilities. In education, modeling can give insight into the dynamics of systems and processes. Most nuclear processes can be described by ordinary or partial differential equations. Efforts expended to solve the equations using analytical or numerical solution consume time and distract attention from the objective of modeling itself. This paper presents the use of Simulink, a Matlab toolbox software that is widely used in control engineering, as a modeling platform for the study of nuclear processes including nuclear reactor behaviour. Starting from the describing equations, Simulink models for heat transfer, radionuclide decay process, delayed neutron fractions, reactor point kinetic equation with six delayed neutron group, and the effect of temperature feedback are used as examples

Prospect for nuclear engineering education in Malaysia

The use of nuclear power for electricity generation using nuclear power reactors are well-known. Malaysia is considering the use of nuclear power in her energy mix. Engineers with nuclear engineering background will be needed alongside other engineering disciplines. The planning window for a national nuclear power program is long, but the need to graduate nuclear engineers from Malaysian universities should be thought about earlier. There are courses in Malaysian universities that are related to nuclear science and technology. These courses are far from typical nuclear engineering curriculum, but can be the basis for setting-up such program. The nuclear program is not expected to be very big as to require multiple universities offering nuclear engineering degree program. Furthermore suitable faculties are dispersed among several universities. Consortium of universities could be an approach to start the human capital aspect of the nuclear power program

PROBABILISTIC MODEL OF LASER RANGE FINDER FOR THREE DIMENSIONAL GRID CELL IN CLOSE RANGE ENVIRONMENT

The probabilistic model of a laser scanner presents an important aspect for simultaneous localization and map-building (SLAM). However, the characteristic of the beam of the laser range finder under extreme incident angles approaching 900 has not been thoroughly investigated. This research paper reports the characteristic of the density of the range value coming from a laser range finder under close range circumstances where the laser is imposed with a high incident angle. The laser was placed in a controlled environment consisting of walls at a close range and 1000 iteration of scans was collected. The assumption of normal density of the metrical data collapses when the beam traverses across sharp edges in this environment. The data collected also shows multimodal density at instances where the range has discontinuity. The standard deviation of the laser range finder is reported to average at 10.54 mm, with 0.96 of accuracy. This significance suggests that under extreme incident angles, a laser range finder reading behaves differently compared to normal distribution. The use of this information is crucial for SLAM activity in enclosed environments such as inside piping grid or other cluttered environments. KEYWORDS:   Hokuyo UTM-30LX; kernel density estimation; probabilistic model

Level Crossing Control: A Novel Method Using Sound Recognition

The level crossing (LX) or railway crossing being an intersection between a public road and a railway line, can be controlled actively or passively. Sound recognition can be used to actively control a level crossing. A system is proposed in this study for the use of sound to control a LX. This proposed system uses Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficient (MFCC) as feature extractor, and Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) as classifier. The proposed system has shown a great potential that could be harnessed to contribute to the reduction in the loss of lives and properties at the LX

Mechatronics book series: robotics and automation

This book is part of the Mechatronics Book Series that contains contributions on Robotics and Automation. The book contains chapters, which can be divided into two main parts; majority of chapters related to Robotics and the remaining seven chapters on Automation. In Robotics, design and development of various types of robots and robot parts, such as biped robot, humanoid robotic hand, head and arm, fish robot, cleaning robot, snake robot and hexapod robot, are presented. Robots for numerous applications, such as robots for upper limb rehabilitation, mobile robot for tube inspection, person following robot and goal finding robot, are designed and discussed. In each of robotic related chapter, types of sensors, actuators and system integration are well studied. In Automation, applications of supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) for pipe monitoring, water treatment, distribution system are presented. Automations in landmark generation for automatic mapping system, food storage system, and that in hazardous environment are also investigated. The book provides states of the art which will be useful for graduate students, researchers and engineers as a practical guide to implementation of Mechatronics in Robotics and Automation, particularly in robot design and development, and automation applications