Nuclear Science and Engineering

The Nuclear Science and Engineering application area covers research in a number areas including the application of radiation, radioactive materials and nuclear fission in the areas of nuclear power, nuclear medicine, radiation safety, and environmental management. 

Research topics under this area include:

  1. Risk, Reliability and Safety Analysis (AldemirSmidts, Stewart, Wang) includes nuclear reactor safety, probabilistic safety/risk assessment of large engineering systems, non-linear system diagnostics and prognostics, reliability analysis, probabilistic risk assessment (Levels I, II and III), nuclear power plant severe accident analysis modeling, dynamic methods of probabilistic risk assessment, uncertainty quantification in dynamic systems, fire risk assessment.
  2. Applied Nuclear Physics and Radiation Science (BlueCao, Kandlakunta, KhafizovSinhaVasques) is concerned with the interaction of different forms of ionizing radiation with materials and the modeling and simulation of radiation transport. Applications include the development of novel sensors to detect radiation, nuclear reactor kinetics, advanced nuclear instrumentation and measurement methodology, the damage caused by radiation on material properties, use of neutrons, gamma- and X-rays as an interrogation or probing tool to study advanced materials or to characterize special nuclear materials, radiography, radiation therapy, and the mathematical modeling and numerical simulations of neutron and photon transport problems.
  3. Nuclear Instrumentation and Control (AldemirKandlakunta, SmidtsSinha) covers instrumentation and control systems, software reliability modeling, automated software testing, human reliability analysis, digital systems reliability and risk assessment, advanced nuclear reactor instrumentation.
  4. Nuclear Materials, Fuel Cycles and Waste Management (CaoKhafizov) covers material corrosion/oxidation, stress corrosion cracking, nuclear materials degradation, coolant technology, electrochemistry, nuclear fuel cycle modeling, multi-scale simulations, fluid/solid interfacial interactions, radioactive waste management.
  5. Radiation Transport, Reactor Physics and Thermal Hydraulics (VasquesWang) encompasses the mathematical modeling and computational methods development of radiation transport through matter, reactor physics and reactor thermal hydraulics. Research includes the fields of neutron and photon transport, reactor core physics and kinetics, thermal hydraulics modeling and simulation, advanced reactors design, radiation shielding, nuclear security and nonproliferation, radiography and radiation therapy.

Labs and Centers

Graduate Courses

Course Number Course Name
NUCLREN 5001 Interactions of Radiation with Matter
NUCLREN 5002 Reactor Theory
NUCLREN 5003 Nuclear Reactor Systems and Analysis
NUCLREN 5004 Materials in Nuclear Systems
NUCLREN 5606 Radiation Protection and Shielding
NUCLREN 5610 Reactor Safety
NUCLREN 5735 Nuclear Power Plant Operations
NUCLREN 5742 Nuclear Radiations and Their Measurements
NUCLREN 5776 Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Radioactive Waste Management
NUCLREN 6507 Intermediate Numerical Methods
NUCLREN 6716 Probabilistic Reliability and Safety Assessment
NUCLREN 6725 Nuclear Reactor Dynamics
NUCLREN 6726 Reactor Dynamics Laboratory
NUCLREN 6766 Nuclear Engineering Design
NUCLREN 6881 Nuclear Engineering Seminar
NUCLREN 7865 Neutron Slowing Down and Thermalization
NUCLREN 8717 Dynamic Probabilistic Risk Assessment
NUCLREN 8777 Risk and Reliability for Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems

 

Faculty