The importance of reactor engineering and safety in the design, operation and risk assessment of nuclear fission reactors has been realized since the 1940s when the first reactors were built. It was re-emphasized after the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents. Professors Bier, Blanchard, Bonazza, Corradini, Henderson, Moses, Vogelsang and Witt, and reactor director Cashwell, are researching these topics. Their work is directed not only at the current type of reactor (the so-called light water reactor) but also at liquid metal reactors (LMR) and advanced power reactor design concepts (e.g., advanced light water and modular high-temperature gas-cooled reactors).

Current programs focus on three general areas. First, light water and fast reactor safety research theoretically and/or experimentally examines physical processes for accidents that go beyond the current design base (degraded core or core melt accidents). These processes include hydrogen generation; molten fuel/coolant interactions; debris bed formation and heat transfer; debris/vessel interaction and vessel response; molten core-concrete interactions; and containment response. All of these physical processes are coupled with a probabilistic risk assessment methodology as well as deterministic analyses.

In the second area, light water reactor operation research aids Midwestern utilities in simulator modeling, operator training, and accident response and management.

Finally, advanced reactor design investigations include new design concepts for second-generation power reactors that are inherently safer and more reliable than current designs. This effort is actually the culmination of the other two areas of research where probabilistic analysis coupled with nuclear plant modeling points the way to improved reactor design for the future.

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