During their graduate courses at university most researchers encountered advanced mathematical courses combined with engineering, physics or chemistry courses that required the application of the newly-learned mathematical concepts. After several years of on-the-job research, however, the application of these mathematical concepts is mostly left to specialists and is forgotten.
One person for whom that is untrue is Ken Burrill. Ken was a 31-year (1970-2002) employee at Chalk River where he plied his skills as a Chemical Engineer, often using mathematical models to predict corrosion rates and fouling of reactor systems with corrosion products.
Retirement did not bring an end to Ken’s love of mathematical modelling and he spent the next two decades applying his engineering and mathematical skills to modelling many other aspects of life. His efforts have led to a three-volume, limited-edition (only two or three copies printed) compendium labelled “A Modeller’s Delight” which he has donated to the Canadian Nuclear Heritage Museum (CNHM). Each volume has a CD accompanying it that contains the Fortran routines used for the calculations.
Some of the almost 300 problems Ken has addressed are extensions of his work at Chalk River. These include “A CANDU Reactor with a Square Moderator Tank” and “Filtering Crud from a CANDU Reactor Coolant.”
Other topics are completely different. Those of you who have had a retina repair will be interested in his calculation of “Dissolution of Gas Bubble in the Eye”. Following surgery, the eyeball fluid is often replaced by a gas (sulphur-hexafluoride) which the body absorbs and replaces with the appropriate fluid. Using such mathematical tools as ”Henry’s Law” and “Fick’s First law of Diffusion”, Ken’s predicts a time of 33.8 days for the gas to be absorbed and replaced by the fluid.
Other every-day topics modelled are “Alcohol Content of Champagne Bubbles” (answer – 29% for 10% ethanol-content wine) or “Helium Loss from a Party Balloon” (calculated using Hooke’s law, Fick’s Law and Henry’s Law) and “Chug-a-Lug Contest” – (what is the best drainage angle at which to tilt your bottle, assuming steady-state turbulent flow?)
Tom Alburger, the cataloguer at the CNHM, has shelved Ken’s three volumes under category TA342 B8 and we invite you to examine them on your next visit to explore more of Ken’s modelling calculations. You can arrange a visit by calling any member of the Executive for the Society for the Preservation of Canada’s Nuclear Heritage Inc. or by sending an email to info@nuclearheritage.com. You may want to learn more about “The Melting Point of Ice Under Blade of a Speed-Skate”, Fourier’s Law as it applies to heat transfer involved in “Hard-boiling an Egg”, or some other intriguing topic.
