NC State engineers part of DOE effort to improve nuclear fuel storage

Two North Carolina State University engineers are part of a new nationwide effort to improve the way nuclear fuel is stored at nuclear power plants.

Dr. K. L. Murty, professor of nuclear engineering and materials science engineering, and Dr. Jacob Eapen, assistant professor of nuclear engineering, will join researchers from five universities and two national laboratories in the US Department of Energy-sponsored effort.

DOE granted the universities $4.5 million to begin the work, which is led by researchers at Texas A&M. NC State expects to receive about $700,000 for its role in the project.

The DOE grant was one of 23 awarded to university-led teams around the country aimed at strengthening nuclear research and development capabilities at American universities and colleges. The goal is to develop the next generation of nuclear energy technologies and upgrade research reactors across the country. The award was one of two Integrated Research Projects awarded by the agency.

“These projects are critical to research aimed at advancing our domestic nuclear industry and maintaining global leadership in the field,” US Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in a statement. “Through these investments we are also training and educating the next generation of leaders in the U.S. nuclear industry to help build a strong new energy economy.”

Murty, a faculty member at NC State since 1981, is an expert in several research areas relating to nuclear power plants, including failure analysis, corrosion, structure-property relation, and the effect of an aggressive environment and neutron exposure on mechanical properties and fracture characteristics. He is a fellow of the American Society for Metals International and the American Nuclear Society (ANS), and his awards include the ANS Mishima award for outstanding research in nuclear fuels and materials. Murty is currently director of graduate programs for nuclear engineering, and his research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.

Eapen, who earned a doctoral degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, joined NC State in 2008 following post-doctoral training at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. His primary research interests are in molecular and multiscale simulations. His research activities include investigating radiation effects in graphite and high temperature ceramics; developing nanostructured materials for radiation tolerance; transport mechanisms in complex salts for nuclear waste reprocessing; thermal and diffusive transport in nuclear fuel and clad; and fundamental investigations on slow relaxation in supercooled liquids and glassy materials. Eapen has also worked for several years on advanced reactor design, fuel engineering and computational fluid dynamics. His research projects have been funded by the Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Idaho National Laboratory.