Congratulations to seven (7) nuclear engineering senior design teams and five (5) Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL)-funded students who participated in this year’s American Nuclear Society (ANS) Student Conference in Gainesville, Florida. Three senior design teams won in three (3) technical categories:

Design of a nuclear power system to support an asteroid refinery in space
Sponsor: Southern Company – Mr. Nicholas Smith
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Jason Hou
Graduate Teaching Assistant: Mr. Luke Cornejo
Student Team: Benjamin Dacus, John Pashby, Joseph Coale, Joseph Muller, Matthew Bergstedt, Dante Dorsey (SCSU)
‘AEROSPACE NUCLEAR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY’ CATEGORY WINNER

Loading pattern optimization with a focus on relative fuel risk for a 3-loop Westinghouse pressurized water reactor and gadolinium burnable absorber
Sponsor: Westinghouse – Baxter Durham and Shuang Du, PE
Faculty Advisers: Dr. Maria Avramova and Dr. Kostadin Ivanov
Graduate Teaching Assistant: Ms. Ishita Trivedi
Student Team: Ethan Manning, Smantha Michael, Chase Lawing, Joseph Pucket, Carl Burrell (SCSU)
‘FUEL CYCLE & WASTE MANAGEMENT’ CATEGORY WINNER

S-PRISM internal core catcher
Sponsor: General Electric-Hitachi – Dr. Eric Loewen
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Robert Hayes
Graduate Teaching Assistant: Mr. Luke Cornejo
Student Team: Qays El-Ali, James Keim, Hyeon Lee, Marquese Murphy, Duncan Trosan
‘NUCLEAR INSTALLATIONS SAFETY’ CATEGORY WINNER

Catawba accident tolerant fuel: transitions and full core fuel implementation
Sponsor: Duke Energy – Nicholas Hager
Faculty Adviser: Dr. David Kropaczek
Graduate Teaching Assistant: Ms. Sara Alawabdeh
Student Team: Richard Skowron, Lance Bullerwell, Thomas Folk, Lewis Rigsbee, Walker Davis, Gordon Appling

Loading pattern optimization with a focus on relative fuel risk for a 2-loop Westinghouse pressurized water reactor and gadolinium burnable absorber
Sponsor: Westinghouse – Mr. Baxter Durham and Mr. Shuang Du, PE
Faculty Advisers: Dr. Maria Avramova and Dr. Kostadin Ivanov
Graduate Teaching Assistant: Ms. Ishita Trivedi
Student Team: Christopher Sedota, John Ellisor, Alex Tunnell, Stephen Sawyer Jr., Terkessia Hart (SCSU)

MHTGR core modelling with RELAP5-3D/PHISICS – optimization schemes for load following
Sponsor: Idaho National Laboratory (INL) – Drs. Cristian Rabiti & Aaron Epiney
Faculty Advisers: Dr. Maria Avramova and Dr. Paolo Balestra
Graduate Teaching Assistant: Ms. Ishita Trivedi
Student Team: Cameron Carlyon, Jaylon Myers, Cody English, Keion Henry

Twenty-year core life extension for load-following sodium-cooled fast reactors
Sponsor: General Electic-Hitachi – Dr. Eric Loewen
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Scott Palmtag
Graduate Teaching Assistant: Ms. Sara Alawabdeh
Student Team: William Murray, Kotaro Yoshizaki, Garrett Riggs, Brandon Tung, Dale Clavon (SCSU)

Presentations on CASL-supported research included:

BWR inlet coolant flow distribution effects on reactivity prediction
Student: Joseph Coale
Faculty Adviser: Dr. David Kropaczek and Dr. J. Michael Doster

Developing a method to link CTF to ANC9
Student: Christopher Sedota
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Scott Palmtag

Development of post-processing tools for direct numerical simulations of bubbly flow in PWR subchannels
Students: Andre Gouws, Joseph Cambareri
Advisers: Dr. Jun Fang (ANL) and Dr. Igor Bolotnov (NCSU)

Validating computational methods for modeling uranium silicide fuel
Student: Walker Davis
Faculty Advisers: Dr. David Kropaczek and Dr. Scott Palmtag

Generation of Multigroup Heterogeneous Cross Sections using WIMS-D Libraries
Student: Lance Bullerwell
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Scott Palmtag