Reactor refuel is unique educational opportunity for nuclear engineering students

Under a U.S. Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) initiative, engineers will convert the University of Wisconsin–Madison research and training nuclear reactor from highly enriched uranium (HEU) to low enriched uranium (LEU). Idaho National Laboratory will store the HEU fuel.

The conversion, which will occur sometime in 2009 or early 2010, is part of the NNSA Global Threat Reduction Initiative. In 2008, NNSA successfully converted research reactors at Washington State University and Oregon State University from HEU to LEU fuel. The 1-megawatt reactor at UW–Madison operates with TRIGA fuel and is the last such U.S. university reactor scheduled for conversion. On all aspects of the conversion process, the university is working closely with federal, state and local agencies.

The reactor was built in 1960 and licensed for 40 years, with a recent 20-year extension. It achieved initial criticality at 10 kilowatts, its original steady-state power level, in 1961. A 1964 upgrade brought the reactor power level to 250 kilowatts and another in 1967 raised it to 1 megawatt.

Annually, some 600 to 1,000 university students, high school teachers and students, emergency personnel and members of such organizations as the Boy and Girl Scouts learn about the reactor and how to operate it.

The reactor is an educational tool central to the UW–Madison nuclear engineering undergraduate and graduate programs — both ranked for decades among the top five U.S. nuclear engineering programs. Since the beginning of nuclear engineering education at UW–Madison in 1958, graduates have worked in the nuclear industry at utilities, service vendors, manufacturers and the like, or contributed to nuclear engineering research and education in positions at national and international laboratories or universities.

“Either at the undergraduate level or the graduate level, the people who are trained and educated here are our key product,” says Wisconsin Distinguished Professor of Engineering Physics Michael Corradini.

Throughout its 40-plus-year history, the reactor also has provided neutron irradiation services to researchers who have studied the properties of everything from moon rocks and landfill soil to fish samples, cow manure and pottery from around the world. Recently, engineering physics faculty and staff used the reactor to test new materials for the ultra-efficient nuclear reactors of the future.

The upcoming fuel changeover marks the fourth fuel reload in the reactor lifetime. The planning process, which began with the U.S. Department of Energy in 2007, has involved not only reactor staff, but also faculty and graduate students in the UW–Madison Department of Engineering Physics. As part of the process, several graduate students conducted a reactor analysis for their master’s theses. They developed advanced computer models that, benchmarked with the fresh fuel, will enable researchers to conduct more sophisticated, precise, reactor-based experiments.

In addition, for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission-licensed undergraduate students who work at the reactor, the fuel changeover presents a unique educational opportunity. “They’re seeing firsthand, hands-on, similar activities that they’d see when they go to work in industry at the power reactors — but on a much smaller scale,” says reactor director Robert Agasie.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing the reactor analysis and will amend the current reactor license to reflect the new fuel. Funding for the project comes from the U.S. Department of Energy. Other partners include Argonne National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory and TRIGA International.