Hamid Ait Abderrahim - Böcker

The ENS Class 1 Topical Meeting on “Research Facilities for the Future of Nuclear Energy” provided an international scientific and technical forum for a broad review, at world level, of the large research facilities, dedicated for tests for nuclear energy production, which are existing, under construction, or planned for the future. The research facilities covered during the conference are those supporting R&D programmes related to the operation of nuclear reactor power plants and the development of new concepts in the areas of material testing, nuclear data measurements, code validation, fuel cycle, reprocessing, and waste disposal.The conference was relevant to a wide range of people such as the operators and managers of research facilities, research organizations that depend on the facilities for results, young professionals who will shape future requirements, nuclear utilities, vendors (fuel, components), service and engineering companies, designers, plant operators, waste management agencies, licensing authorities, and the decision makers.

This symposium provided a forum for interchange of state-of-the-art techniques and databases and for standardization of radiation metrology.The proceedings are of value to anyone involved in reactor dosimetry, including researchers, manufacturers, and representatives from industry, utilities and regulatory agencies. The major topics treated are: reactor pressure vessel surveillance and plant life management; reactor dosimetry techniques; benchmarks; nuclear data; damage correlation and exposure parameters; experimental and calculational characterization of irradiation environments; dosimetry for research reactors and irradiation experiments.

Following FLINS '94 and FLINS '96, the first and second International Workshops on Fuzzy Logic and Intelligent Technologies in Nuclear Science, FLINS '98 covers recent developments, both of a foundational and applicational character, in the fields of intelligent techniques such as fuzzy logic, neural networks, genetic algorithms, robotics, man-machine interface and decision-support systems within nuclear science and related research fields.This volume clearly shows the leading role of FLINS as a forum for the applications of new intelligent techniques in the nuclear domain.

This book is divided into three parts. The first part, “Mathematical Tools and New Developments”, provides basic tools to treat fuzzy set theory, rough set theory, fuzzy control, fuzzy modelling, decision support systems, and related applications. The second part, “Intelligent Engineering Applications”, reports on engineering problems such as man-machine interface, risk analysis, image processing, robotics, knowledge-based engineering, expert systems, process control integration, diagnosis, measurements and interpretation by intelligent techniques and soft computing used for general engineering applications. The third part, “Nuclear Engineering Applications”, concentrates on nuclear applications and covers several topics such as nuclear energy, nuclear safety assessment, radioactive waste management, nuclear measurements, nuclear safeguards, nuclear reactor operation, reactor controller design, fuel reload pattern design, signal validation, nuclear power plants, and optimizations in nuclear applications.