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NPRE 457

 Safety Analysis of Nuclear Reactor Systems

Dr. Magdi Ragheb

Spring 2026

Professor

  1. Incomplete List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students 1998
  2. Incomplete List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students 2000
  3. Advisor's list 2003.

     

    DRES STUDENTS

     

    "If you are requesting DRES accommodation, it is your responsibility to reach out to DRES in time and make arrangements to take your exams at DRES on  the same day and at the same time as the rest of the class.  DRES does not accommodate late requests.  DRES needs a week of advance notice to accommodate your request. Students must register for their exam one week prior to the date of the exam. Dates of all exams are announced in advance."

     

Assignments and Teaching Assistants

        Assignments will account for 40 percent of the final grade.

Tests

Two midterm tests and one final test are scheduled.

Each will account for 20 percent of the final grade for a total of 60 percent of the final grade.

 Assignments, quizzes (unannounced), final project, 40 percent.

Credit

Undergraduates: 3 hours of credit.

Graduates: 3 hours, 1 hour for advanced term paper or project, for a total of 4 hours of credit.

 

Calendar for Spring Semester 2026

Time: MWF 10:00-10:50 am, Meets 01/20/26-05/06/26,
Location: 3018 Campus Instructional Facility
 

Martin Luther King Jr. Day Monday January 19 (No classes)
Instruction begins Tuesday January 20
Spring Break Begins
Instruction Resumes		 Saturday March 14 (1:00 pm)
Monday March 23 (7:00 am)
Instruction ends Wednesday May 6
Reading Day Thursday May 7
Final Examinations begin
Final Examinations end		 Friday May 8
Thursday May 14

First Midterm exam

  

Second Midterm exam

  
Final Exam 1:30-4:30 p.m., Thursday, May 14

Commencement

 Saturday May 16

 

Textbook Manuscript
© M. Ragheb
Intellectual Property IP Protection

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64197625

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-59893035

PROBABILISTIC, POSSIBILISTIC AND DETERMINISTIC SAFETY ANALYSIS

Nuclear Applications

 © M. Ragheb
 

Preface
1. Overview
2. Natural Disasters and Man Made Accidents
 3. Safety Definitions and Terminology
4. Accidents Occurrence
5. Risk Quantification
 6. Incidence and Likelihood Risk and Safety Indices
7. The Risk Assesment Methodology
 8. Risk and Safety Ethics
9. The Source Term
10. Environmental Remediation of Radioactive Contamination
11. Decay Heat Generation in Fission Reactors
12. Cost Effectiveness Analysis
 13. Boolean Algebra
14. Fuzzy de Morgan Algebra
15. Probabilistic and Possibilistic Fault Tree Analysis
16. Event Tree Analysis
17. Random Numbers Generation
18. Direct Simulation or Analog Monte Carlo
19. Sampling Methods
20. Sampling Special Distributions
21. Fluid  Mechanics Equations
22. Safety Computational Fluid Dynamics
23. Loss of Coolant Accident, LOCA
24. Debris Bed Cooling
25. Steam Explosions
26. Clad Ballooning Accident
27. China Syndrome
28. Containment Structures
29. Safety Aspects of Gas Cooled Reactors
30. Heavy Water Reactors Safety
31. Liquid Metal Reactors Postulated Accidents
 32. Autonomous Battery Reactors
33. Fourth Generation  Reactor Concepts
34. Inherently Safe Reactor Designs
35. The Three Mile Island Accident
36. Chernobyl Accident
37. Experimental Breeder Reactor Number I, EBR I Criticality Accident
38. Stationary Low Power Plant Number 1, SL-1 Accident
39. Sodium-Graphite Reactor Experiment, SRE incident
40. Windscale Accident
41. Fermi 1 Fuel Meltdown Incident
42. Steam Generator Leakage at the BN-350 Desalination Plant
43. Browns Ferry Fire
44. Earthquake Safety
45. Fukushima Earthquake and Tsunami Station Blackout Accident
46. Global Climatic Variation and Energy Use
47. Solar Storms Effects on Nuclear and Electrical Installations

References

Appendices

I.  Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse
II. Procedure to generate a decay curve, decay.f90
III. Procedure to compute decay heat power and energy release, decayheat.f90
IV. Fault tree analysis code, sample14.f90
VI. Input file to sample14 program, insamp14.txt
VI.  The Panic Over Fukushima
 

Related Courses Information

       NPRE402/ME405  Nuclear Power Engineering

       NPRE457/CSE462 Safety Analysis of Nuclear Reactor Systems

       NPRE490MC(NPRE456/CSE416) Monte Carlo Simulations

       NPRE490WP Wind Power Systems

       NPRE590SF Nuclear and Radiological Safety

       NPRE459/CSE417 Fuzzy Logic and its Applications

 

Please contact Prof. M. Ragheb as a Webmaster at: (217)333-6569 with feedback concerning this page.

Last update for this page was on 10/25/2025.