Pitt awarded $1.3 million in grants for nuclear research

When professor John Metzger began his tenure as director of Pitt’s nuclear engineering program… When professor John Metzger began his tenure as director of Pitt’s nuclear engineering program in 2010, the certificate program focused primarily on academics, placing little emphasis on research.

In the two years of his leadership, the nuclear engineering department considerably increased its propensity for research, increasing enrollment in its graduate program. Last week, Metzger’s work won Pitt grants totaling $1.3 million from the U.S. Department of Energy. Through the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy University Program, Metzger, fellow Pitt professor Mark Kimber and Pitt graduate student Rita Patel each received funding for their respective projects developing new technology for nuclear energy that could make the process safer.

The NEUP focuses on the integration of research and development at universities, national laboratories and industry and on revitalizing nuclear education in the country, according to the Department of Energy’s website. The NEUP also provides funding for the improvement of nuclear research infrastructure on college campuses by improving their research, development and educational capacities.

Metzger said the NEUP program provides funding for research on energy capabilities of nuclear power rather than its use in national defense. For his own research, Metzger received a grant of $900,000 to fund several projects.

In his first project, Metzger teamed with professor Jon Longtin of Stony Brook University to developed a system that would provide power for emergency backup systems in the case of a meltdown at a nuclear power plant. Nuclear meltdowns are catastrophic accidents that result from nuclear reactors overheating, as happened famously in the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters.

“[We’re] using thermoelectrics to power sites in the case of meltdown,” Metzger said. “These could potentially charge batteries that operate safety-class valves.”

Metzger said that the techonology is essentially a back-up power supply for reactors. In the case of Fukushima, the plant lost energy, resulting in the meltdown. Metzger said his back-up system could prevent that. Along with the research and development funding for his project, Metzger also received funding for the development of a radiation counting lab at Pitt. Metzger said this technology could be used in the development of devices that emit alpha, gamma and neutron waves in order to detect natural gas.

By collaborating with Pitt’s radiology program, Metzger said he hopes to build a radiology lab for undergraduate and graduate students with the $300,000 he received in NEUP grants.

Mark Kimber, an assistant professor in Pitt’s mechanical engineering and materials science department, received a $900,000 grant toward his research involving the mixing of high-temperature gas streams in a high-temperature gas reactor. His team observes the effects of mixing gas and how the mixed gases affect the core of a gas reactor’s structural integrity.

“We are developing tools to better predict the generation and transport of heat in the next generation of nuclear reactors,” Kimber said. According to Metzger, Kimber’s research could help develop a method to test nuclear reactors at very high temperatures.

First-year engineering graduate student Rita Patel also received funding for her research and development plan. The NEUP has a separate fellowship program for graduate engineering students.

Patel was among 31 students nation-wide who received an annual $50,000 stipend over the next three years. The NEUP fellowship includes a $5,000 research stipend toward a summer internship at the national research laboratory.

She said in an email that she originally proposed research based on her work as a senior undergraduate student last year at Pitt. She said her work involved studying the energies of grain boundaries of line pipe steel.

Patel also said she filed this proposal before she decided to attend graduate school at Pitt and that her final proposal will focus more closely on nuclear engineering.

“I will be working on research related to the oxidation of metal alloys with my advisor, Dr. [Gerald] Meier,” Patel said. “This can be related to nuclear engineering in a variety of ways. The simplest is that the casing of the reactors used in nuclear power plants is partially made from different kinds of alloys, which experience oxidation and radiation under use.”

Her work would help develop metal alloys that could better withstand the wear put on them by oxygen and radiation, both of which can undermine the integrity of the metals.

For Metzger, Pitt receiving the NEUP grants speaks volumes toward the progress made by the nuclear engineering program since the program’s inception.

“We’re trying to build the nuclear engineering program here, and [the grants were] a significant development for this school,” Metzger said.