HF Controls donates $450,000 to UTA for AI research and student support

In December 2025, Oleksandr Ulybkin completed the “CORE MODELLING FOR CORE DESIGN” course as part of the GRE@T-PIONEeR Project at Chalmers University of Technology. Thanks to the NURECAB Programme, Ukrainian specialists gain a unique opportunity to integrate into the European scientific community and acquire advanced knowledge in nuclear energy. The course combined classical and modern methods for PWR and BWR core modelling, hands-on work with SIMULATE-3, OpenMC, Matlab, and cutting-edge online infrastructure. For Oleksandr, it was not only a demonstration of real-world technologies but also a chance to develop a “roadmap” for his further professional growth. NURECAB continues to support Ukrainian specialists and opens new opportunities for international collaboration in nuclear research. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gZjKtbUt

🚀 Big milestone from the Multiphase Flow and Reaction Engineering Education Laboratory (mFREE-Lab) at Missouri S&T! 🏆 The mFREE-Lab 🧪🔬 has successfully advanced the development of the S&T-mHT facility, a next-generation experimental platform for thermal-hydraulic research in prismatic micro-HTGRs, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy University Program (DOE-NEUP)! ⚛️💡 🔧 Designed to replicate core geometry, materials, and flow physics of HTGRs 🔄 Capable of forced flow, natural circulation, PCC/DCC scenarios, and bypass-flow studies ↔️ Unique dual-orientation (horizontal & vertical) for comprehensive accident and operational testing This facility will deliver high-fidelity experimental data to validate CFD and heat transfer models, a critical step toward safer, more efficient advanced nuclear systems. 🌍 Project Leadership: 📌 Principal Investigator (PI): Al-Dahhan Muthanna 🤝 Research team: Vivek Rao, PhD EIT, Ahmed Jasim, Zeyad Zeitoun, and myself. Missouri University of Science and Technology The detailed design and full development phase is underway, stay tuned for more! 🔜 #mFREE #MissouriST #NuclearEngineering #HTGR #ThermalHydraulics #DOE #NEUP #AdvancedReactors #NuclearInnovation #CleanEnergy #CFD #EngineeringResearch #NextGenNuclear #LabExcellence ⚛️🔬⚙️

Yesterday, the Skills4Nuclear (S4N) project published its Stakeholder Engagement Action Plan! The Stakeholder Engagement Action Plan is the third deliverable published as part of Work Package 3, on Communications and Attractiveness. It provides: 🙋 A mapping of the different stakeholder groupings 🤝 An assessment of stakeholder specific needs 📝 A list of activities to be undertaken to foster active engagement. In terms of stakeholder engagement practices, one size does not fit all: different stakeholders have different needs. As the conversation evolves with different stakeholders, their needs may change and new stakeholders not previously considered may be identified. The Deliverable should thus be considered a ‘living document’. Discover the full Deliverable ➡️ https://swll.to/kErLT #Skills4Nuclear #VocationalTraining #Education #Nuclear #Construction #Energy #MedicalApplications #SpaceApplications #Fusion #Fission #skills #upskilling #reskilling #younggeneration #talent #electricity #training #workforce #EUproject #training #150GW2050 #Euratom Chalmers University of Technology GIFEN Swedish Radiation Safety Authority Université des Métiers du Nucléaire SNETP SCK CEN Societatea Nationala Nuclearelectrica SA nucleareurope NRG PALLAS LGI Sustainable Innovation Institute of Plasma Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences FuseNet Association Université de Caen Normandie ENEN Association European Commission Czech Technical University in Prague Център за ядрени компетенции Козлодуй / Centre of Nuclear Competence Kozloduy

Respect the Nuclear Pioneers. Learn from their mistakes (Forgotten Reactors Series) As I’ve been telling the stories of the forgotten reactors, I’ve spent a fair amount of time (maybe a lot of time!) pointing out what went wrong—the design choices, chemistry issues, operational blind spots, and institutional overconfidence that ultimately led many of these plants to shut down early. To an outsider, that might sound overly critical. So today, I want to say something clearly and without qualification: Those early nuclear pioneers were OUTSTANDING engineers. Full stop. These men and women designed, built, and operated nuclear power plants using tools that would feel almost primitive today—drafting tables, blueprints, slide rules, hand calculations, and physical intuition developed through experience rather than simulation. - No Monte Carlo codes. - No digital twins. - No CFD on demand. - No instant iteration. And yet they built reactors that worked—often on the first try. They were inventing an entirely new industrial technology in real time, under immense political pressure, with incomplete data, and with the full knowledge that failure would be very public. That takes courage, creativity, and craftsmanship of the highest order. When I’m critical of some of these early plants, it’s not because the engineers were careless or incompetent. It’s because they were pushing boundaries that had never been pushed before. And here’s the part that matters today: We now have the luxury of hindsight. - We know how chemistry quietly kills reliability. - We know how small design compromises compound over decades. - We know how “clever” solutions often age poorly. - We know how operational realities punish theoretical elegance. My concern isn’t that modern advanced reactor companies lack intelligence or good intentions. It’s that many may not fully understand — or fully RESPECT — the specific reasons some of these earlier designs struggled, despite being built by extraordinarily capable people. If we don’t internalize those lessons, we risk repeating them with far more sophisticated tools — and far more expensive consequences. The goal isn’t to mock the past. The goal is to honor it properly — by learning from it. Some things were built better back then. And with the right mindset, we can still do that. #ForgottenReactors #NuclearHistory #NuclearEngineering #EngineeringExcellence #AdvancedReactors #LessonsLearned

📍 GO-VIKING Progress Meeting at Ghent University On 20–21 November, the GO-VIKING consortium met in Ghent to review scientific progress and coordinate the next steps toward improving flow-induced vibration modelling in nuclear systems. Partners shared updates on: 🔹 uncertainty quantification & fast-running methods 🔹 AMOVI & GOKSTAD simulations 🔹 fuel assembly and steam generator modelling 🔹 experimental & multiphase flow work 🔹 education, training, and dissemination activities The meeting confirmed strong collaboration across Europe as GO-VIKING enters its final six months. 👉 Full article: https://lnkd.in/ecukRg7Q #EURATOM #NuclearSafety #FIV #ResearchCollaboration #HorizonEurope

Inside INL’s Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) Facility Sharing this excellent look inside Idaho National Laboratory’s Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) Facility. TREAT remains one of the world’s few reactors capable of delivering rapid, high-energy transient pulses to evaluate how nuclear fuels behave under extreme and accident-like conditions. These capabilities are essential for: • Qualification of advanced and accident-tolerant fuels • High-burnup fuel safety research • Fast-reactor and microreactor development • Early-stage space-nuclear technologies Having worked at INL for three years as a Research Associate, before moving to CERN, it is always inspiring to see the continued innovation coming from this laboratory. The work carried out at TREAT directly supports the future of safe, high-performance nuclear systems and provides data that the entire community relies on. Excellent work by the INL team. #nuclear #treat #inl #idaho #reactors #nuclearfuels #nucleartesting #maidana #maidanaresearch #idahonationallaboratory #research

🔬 Stay updated on the future of Europe’s Research Reactors! The MAGIC-RR project tackles the challenges of ageing Research Reactors that are vital for nuclear research, medical isotope production, and advanced education in nuclear technology. From understanding material degradation to developing predictive models and sharing best practices, Magic-RR is safeguarding Europe’s RRs for the next generation. 📬 Don’t miss out! Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest results, deliverables, and insights from the project directly in your inbox: https://lnkd.in/dCWBz6uR #Euratom #ResearchReactors #NuclearScience #Innovation #Sustainability #materialstesting #materialsscience HUN-REN Centre for Energy Research, NRG PALLAS, CNRS, Université de Rouen, Eindhoven University of Technology, CEA, Delft University of Technology, LGI Sustainable Innovation, University of Oxford, UK Atomic Energy Authority, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, Necsa

NextGen MURR Design Studies Phase Update The NextGen MURR team has been working with the Consortium of Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute | KAERI, Hyundai Engineering Co. Ltd., and MPR Associates, Inc. to bring the vision of NextGen MURR to life over the past several months. During this initial Design Studies Phase, the team has been conducting various studies to further refine the initiative scope and establish the roadmap to NextGen MURR, a new state-of-the-art multi-purpose research reactor at the University of Missouri. The following studies are being finalized after extensive stakeholder engagement, nuclear expert reviews, and benchmarking of KAERI research facilities: Programming Studies: -Reactor Design & Development (RD&D) – Reactor Programming Study Report -RD&D – Handling & Processing Programming Study Report -A/E Programming Study Report Regulatory Studies: -RD&D Regulatory Study Report -A/E Regulatory Study Report Environmental Study These studies are the culmination of multiple international visits, over 150 meetings, multiple facility and site walk downs, the review of over 3500 report pages, and the resolution of over 2000 comments and questions. I appreciate the hard work of the NextGen MURR team, the Consortium partners, the University of Missouri Research Reactor - MURR® / University of Missouri-Columbia and other stakeholders, and the support of University leadership in getting to this point. These studies and the results of the Design Studies Phase will help establish the path forward to NextGen MURR, a reactor...a nuclear ecosystem... an asset of national strategic significance! MIZ #NextGenMURR #NuclearEcosystem

Inside INL’s Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) Facility Sharing this excellent overview from Idaho National Laboratory showcasing the unique capabilities of the TREAT reactor—one of the world’s few facilities able to perform rapid, high-energy transient tests on nuclear fuels. TREAT’s ability to deliver controlled power pulses—reaching levels thousands of times higher than commercial reactors for very short durations—allows researchers to evaluate how fuels behave under extreme and accident-like conditions. This work is essential for: • Qualification of modern and accident-tolerant fuels • High-burnup fuel safety research • Fast-reactor and microreactor development • Space-nuclear concepts requiring robust, high-performance fuels At MAIDANA RESEARCH, we follow this work closely. Our experience with liquid-metal systems, ALIP technologies, advanced thermal-hydraulics, and nuclear system modeling aligns directly with the type of research supported by facilities like TREAT. These insights strengthen our ongoing work in next-generation reactor concepts—both terrestrial and space-based—and help guide the development of future high-performance fuel and cooling technologies. Excellent work by the INL team. #nuclear #nuclearfuels #treat #inl #idaho #innovation #maidana #nucleartesting #science #nuclearengineering #nuclearscience

Our new paper in Nuclear Fusion discusses translating plasma detachment access into design-ready metrics.   Plasma detachment is a hard requirement for future fusion reactors, not an optional extra. The challenge is to predict the needs for fuel and impurity puffing early in the design process without conducting years of simulations.   This new paper, published in Nuclear Fusion (IOP Publishing), presents physics-based scaling laws that link detachment directly to engineering actuators for the first time across tokamaks, stellarators, and linear plasma devices.   💡Key insights: → Fuel puffing requirements for detachment scale robustly across machines (within a factor of ~2). → Impurity puffing behaves fundamentally differently and requires our new description. → Up to ~90% of injected fuel is driven by divertor needs rather than core fuelling. → Divertor physics is the dominant driver of tritium fuel-cycle design.   The study is based on an open-source database of 457 cases from 32 machines, and it supports Gauss Fusion’s mission to take an integrated, engineering-driven approach to designing fusion power plants.   🤝 Call for collaboration: The database is open, stellarator trends require validation and impurity behaviour in individual machines remains a shared, unresolved challenge. This work grew out of close public–private collaboration between Gauss Fusion and Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), with further contributions from Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik - IPP, EUROfusion, and UK Atomic Energy Authority, and represents an open invitation to develop shared, validated tools for plasma exhaust and fuel-cycle design.   👏Authors: Matteo Moscheni, Albrecht Herrmann, Richard Kembleton, Samuel Lazerson, Filippo Levi and Paul Staniec from Gauss Fusion; Mattia Siccinio (IPP, EUROFusion); Mike Kryjak (UKAEA); and Thomas Giegerich and Christos Tantos from KIT.   🔗 Read the paper: https://lnkd.in/ehx-KXBs 🔗 Explore the open database: https://lnkd.in/esdPRyJ9   #FusionEnergy #FusionPower #FusionWithIntegrity #FusionPowerPlant #SustainableFuture #Sustainability #RenewableEnergy