Farzad Rahnema

Professor and Associate Chair of the Woodruff School, Chair of the Nuclear and Radiological Engineering/Medical Physics Program

Office:	Neely, Room 122
Phone:	404.894.3731
Fax:	404.894.3733
E-mail:

Education

• Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 1981
• M.S., Louisiana State University, 1977
• B.S., Illinois Institute of Technology, 1975

Research Areas

• Nuclear and Radiological Engineering/Medical Physics; Reactor physics, perturbation and variational methods, computational transport theory, criticality safety

Background

Came to Tech in Fall 1992 as an Associate Professor. Prior was a Principal Engineer at General Electric Nuclear Energy.

Research

Since joining Georgia Tech, Dr. Rahnema has been active in the areas of variational and perturbation theory, nodal methods, criticality safety analysis, and benchmark methods. He has been developing boundary condition and boundary perturbation methods for the neutron transport (Boltzmann) equation and its diffusion approximation. The methods deal with calculating the perturbed eigenvalue or a function of the solution for systems with a slightly perturbed boundary and boundary condition. Boundary perturbation formalisms can be used in the analysis of passively safe nuclear reactors. Variational principles for eigenvalues as well as for ratios of linear neutron flux functionals have been developed to treat boundary conditions and boundary perturbations in systems described by the steady-state inhomogeneous and homogeneous Boltzmann equations. The principles are also useful in developing numerical models such as a heterogeneous finite-element model for reactor core calculations. Nuclear criticality safety is directly dependent on the accuracy of the numerical tools used by nuclear criticality safety specialists to analyze operations with fissionable materials. Dr. Rahnema has been conducting collaborative research work with the Westinghouse Savannah River Company and Westinghouse Safety Management Solutions to develop defensible benchmark descriptions of critical experiments.

Dr. Rahnema is also involved in the design and measurement of subcritical experiments with fresh fuel. The project includes the development of a nodal diffusion theory computational tool for the criticality analysis of Westinghouse Savannah River Companys spent fuel storage configurations. The originality of this method is that it achieves Monte Carlo accuracy using a fast and simple diffusion theory model.

Distinctions

• American Nuclear Society
  • Fellow, 2003
  • Mathematics and Computation Division Chair, 1999-2000
• Journal on Transport Theory and Statistical Physics  Conference Special Issue Guest Editor, 2001
• 16th International Conference on Transport Theory Organizing Committee Chair, 1999

Representative Publications

• F. Rahnema, G. C. Pomraning and Dan Ilas. September 27-30, 1999. Wigner-Seitz Cell Problem - Revisited. International Conference on Mathematics and Computaion, Reactor Physics and Environment Analysis in Nuclear Applications, Madrid Spain, Am. Nucl. Soc.
• F. Rahnema and E. M. Nichita. 1997. Leakage Corrected Spatial (Assembly) Homogenization Technique. Annuals of Nuclear Energy 24(6), 477.
• F. Rahnema. 1997. A Boundary Condition Perturbation Technique for Use in Spatial Homogenization Methods in Transport Theory. Transport Theory and Statistical Physics 26(4-5), 570-590.
• H. N. M. Gheorghiu and F. Rahnema. 1998. Variational Principles for Steady-State Neutron Flux Functionals. Transport Theory and Statistical Physics 27(1), 575.
• F. Rahnema and Piero Ravetto. 1998. On the Equivalence of Boundary and Boundary Condition Perturbations in Transport Theory. Nucl. Sci. Eng. 128, 209-223.