Archives
Consortium to design next-generation nuclear research reactors
Jim
Kloeppel, Physical Sciences Editor
(217) 244-1073; kloeppel@illinois.edu
10/17/02
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — With
a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign has teamed with other Big Ten Universities to enhance
existing university research reactor facilities and to design the next
generation of nuclear reactors for research and education.
The Consortium
of Big Ten University Research and Training Reactors includes Illinois,
Pennsylvania State University, the University of Wisconsin at Madison
and Purdue University. The consortium – one of four national centers
funded under DOE’s new Innovations in Nuclear Infrastructure and
Education program – will receive $1.97 million in its first year
and is expected to receive $2.6 million per year for five years.
"University research reactors are becoming scarce, but remain an
extremely important resource in a nation that is becoming more and more
nuclear," said James F. Stubbins, the head of the nuclear, plasma
and radiological engineering department at Illinois. "The need
for advanced reactor facilities and for highly trained nuclear engineers
is an ongoing concern."
Half the electricity in Illinois is generated by nuclear power plants,
Stubbins said. "Nuclear power reduces our dependence on foreign
oil, reduces the need for finding additional coal and oil reserves,
and reduces the production of greenhouse gases."
But the fleet of current university reactors is aging – many are
30 or 40 years old – and becoming dated as research and teaching
tools.
"If we are to meet the energy, environmental and medical challenges
of the future, then initiatives like these are absolutely critical to
preparing the next generation of nuclear engineers and scientists,"
Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham said in a DOE statement.
The consortium is being led by Penn State, home of the first non-military
research reactor in the nation. Of the four collaborating universities,
three have operating reactors. (The Illinois 1.3 Megawatt research reactor
was placed in safe storage nearly four years ago and is not in use.)
Part of the grant will go toward upgrading the operating reactors by
adding modern scientific instrumentation that all consortium members
can use.
Another portion of the grant will be devoted to a significant outreach
effort to students and the general public. Included in that effort will
be the development of specific Web-based course materials.
Illinois will take the lead in looking at the next generation of university
research reactors and developing tools for advancing research reactor
technology.
"Recent advances have created exciting new opportunities for using
research reactors in fields ranging from archeology to materials science,"
Stubbins said. "Because the usages are different, the configuration
of future reactors should be different."
Nuclear fission reactions that occur inside the reactors cause an atom’s
nucleus to split, yielding new nuclei and subatomic particles called
neutrons.
"Much of the current work utilizes neutron beam lines – where
neutrons are guided out of the reactor core to experimental locations,"
Stubbins said. "The intensity of the neutrons depends on how close
you can get to the reactor core."
In current university reactors, a lot of neutrons are lost because experimentalists
can’t get close enough to the core, Stubbins said. "We’ll
correct this problem in the design of a future reactor."
Each of the consortia in DOE’s Innovations in Nuclear Infrastructure
and Education program will focus on a different aspect of a project
to improve university research reactors and nuclear engineering programs.
Illinois will also receive a $48,000 matching grant for the purchase
of new equipment and to further support student and faculty research.
