A layered approach to safety
In 2011 the nuclear energy industry faced one of its greatest challenges. The disabling of three Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors in the wake of an earthquake-triggered tsunami sparked a global race for solutions to improve nuclear safety — a race focused on accident-tolerant fuel (ATF) to avert future reactor breakdowns. Researchers in the United States rose to the challenge, among them Koroush Shirvan, assistant professor in the MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering. After a series of studies on ATF concepts that might be deployed in the near term in collaboration with the nuclear industry, Shirvan has seized on an innovative nuclear fuel concept that addresses key safety issues while offering potential improvements in reactor performance. “By applying an integrated, system-level multidisciplinary approach, we accelerated R&D and now have a new design and demonstration results after just a few years,” says Shirvan. He describes this nuclear technology in a paper published in...