Former Undergrads Win Design Competition

Former nuclear engineering undergraduate students Wes Deason, Daniel Eichel, Josh Hansel and Will Sames won the 2011 Undergraduate Design Competition hosted by the American Nuclear Society at its annual Winter Meeting held October 30 - November 3, 2011 in Washington D.C.

Their design project was titled, "Design and Analysis of a 1-MWe Transportable Heat Pipe-Cooled Fast Reactor."

The team found the design was compared favorably to diesel electric generators for energy production in disaster relief and military scenarios.

The students originally completed the project as part of NUEN 410 - Nuclear Reactor Design. They all earned their Bachelor of Science degrees in May. Eichel, Hansel and Sames are pursuing their graduate studies here in the department, while Deason is a graduate student at Oregon State University.

Deason, Hansel and Sames also presented the following additional papers about the design at the conference:

"Finite Difference Analysis of a Heat Pipe-Cooled Fuel Pin," - Wes Deason
"Neutron Air Activation Analysis of an Open Brayton Cycle Heat Pipe-Cooled Fast Reactor," - Will Sames
"Neutronics Analysis of a 1-MWe Heat Pipe-Cooled Reactor," - Josh Hansel