Abstract: The Generalized Integral Transform Technique (GITT) was employed to simulate transient one-dimensional flow in variably saturated porous media, as well as radioactive waste transport within different layers (a solid waste pile, nearby soil, and a granular aquifer) towards the edge of a uranium mining installation under institutional control. Computational codes, written using the Mathematica software system, were implemented and tested for solution of the coupled advection-dispersion equations for an arbitrary number of daughter products within a radioactive chain migrating in saturated and unsaturated soil layers. The computer simulations were verified in great detail against results obtained using the built-in routine NDSolve of the Mathematica platform and the HYDRUS-1D software system. The present work reports the main results for 238U chain radionuclide transport using data extracted from a safety assessment of solid waste repositories at a uranium mining and milling installation in Caetité, state of Bahia, Brazil, operated by INB (Indústrias Nucleares do Brasil). Concentration evolutions of the various radionuclides obtained with the simulations were analyzed for five different cases to explore variations in the infiltration and recharge rates, the effect of assuming physical equilibrium or non-equilibrium transport conditions, and of different initial concentrations of some of the radionuclides.

Esse artigo objetiva renovar o interesse na pesquisa em convecção térmica mista e enfatizar três temas que surgem da presente análise: (i) uma clara definição da temperatura de referência na aproximação de Boussinesq; (ii) uma delimitação prática dos tres modos convectivos, que são a convecção forçada (CF), convecção mista (CM) e convecção natural (ou livre) (CN). (iii) e, finalmente, uma descrição uniforme do conjunto CF/CM/CN no contexto de similaridade. O caso plano, para o qual soluções analíticas estão disponíveis, permite uma ilustração detalhada das respostas aqui avançadas para os temas acima.

This paper aims to renew interest on mixed thermal convection research and to emphasize three issues that arise from the present analysis: (i) a clear definition of the reference temperature in the Boussinesq approximation; (ii) a practical delimitation of the three convective modes, which are the forced convection (FC), mixed convection (MC) and natural (or free) convection (NC); (iii) and, finally, a uniform description of the set FC/MC/NC in the similarity framework. The planar case, for which analytical solutions are available, allows a detailed illustration of the answers here advanced to the above issues.

The flash method, proposed by Parker, Butler, Jenkins and Abbott from the U.S. Navy Radiological Defense Laboratory in 1961, is the most popular method for measuring the thermal diffusivity of solids. In this method, the front surface of a small sample is subjected to a very short burst of radiant thermal energy. The resulting temperature rise on the opposite surface of the sample is measured and the thermal diffusivity is computed from the temperature rise versus time data. Also, the specific heat can be computed from the measured data, thus allowing for the calculation of the thermal conductivity. Several theoretical models are available for the flash method, which include adiabatic boundary conditions, heat losses, surface coating effects, among other aspects. In this paper, tests were made for the identification of thermo-physical properties of a Ceramic block. The Netzsch Nanoflash LFA 447/1 of LTTC/COPPE/UFRJ was used for the measurements.

The Mathematica system (version 4.0) is employed in the solution of nonlinear difusion and convection-difusion problems, formulated as transient one-dimensional partial diferential equations with potential dependent equation coefficients. The Generalized Integral Transform Technique (GITT) is first implemented for the hybrid numerical-analytical solution of such classes of problems, through the symbolic integral transformation and elimination of the space variable, followed by the utilization of the built-in Mathematica function NDSolve for handling the resulting transformed ODE system. This approach ofers an error-controlled final numerical solution, through the simultaneous control of local errors in this reliable ODE's solver and of the proposed eigenfunction expansion truncation order. For covalidation purposes, the same built-in function NDSolve is employed in the direct solution of these partial diferential equations, as made possible by the algorithms implemented in Mathematica (versions 3.0 and up), based on application of the method of lines. Various numerical experiments are performed and relative merits of each approach are critically pointed out.