Advanced Reactor Research Among 16 Projects Funded by Dept. of Energy

Recently, ISU was among the six national laboratories, six universities, and multiple industry partners whose research projects were selected for funding under the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) HALEU Criticality Benchmarking Projects.

“HALEU stands for High Assay Low Enriched Uranium,” explains Mary Lou Dunzik-Gougar, professor of nuclear engineering at ISU. “Natural uranium contains less than one percent of the uranium-235 used to power nuclear reactors. So, we enrich it up to between two and five percent uranium-235 for use in a reactor. HALEU is enriched even further to between 10 and 20 percent, and it’s what will power advanced reactors being developed now.” 

Because most reactors are running on two to five percent enriched uranium, there’s plenty of data on how they behave, according to Dunzik-Gougar. However, there’s not a lot of information on the advanced reactors that’ll be powered by HALEU. Fortunately for Idaho State, the on-campus reactor is one of only two AGN-201 reactors nationwide currently using HALEU, providing researchers at ISU and their collaborators at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and GE Vernova with a unique opportunity. The team will disassemble the reactor core and take extremely precise dimensional measurements–down to the millimeter and milligram–of its parts and pieces. They will also analyze the fuel powering the AGN-201 and determine the distribution of uranium in each fuel disk and how much of each uranium isotope–uranium 235 and uranium 238–the disks contain. After their analysis and putting the reactor back together, they will operate it in different configurations to gather power output data. 

“The data from AGN-201 will allow advanced reactor designers to create computer models of our reactor,” Dunzik-Gougar said. “The designers will then run their models to see if they are able to reproduce our measured power levels via calculations. If they can, it gives them confidence they are correctly describing the HALEU-fueled reactor behavior and, therefore, confidence their models of advanced reactors are correct. Simply put, they’ll be able to confirm whether their design should work or need to make adjustments.”

In total, the research is being funded to the tune of roughly $1.3  million, spans four to five years, and will involve multiple graduate and doctoral students at Idaho State. 

“Working on the benchmarking project provides me with the opportunity to contribute to the international database for criticality safety and support advancements in the nuclear industry and its vital role in powering modern civilization,” said Maruf Anwarul, a graduate student at Idaho State.

“This is very important work, and ISU is in the company of some of the field’s most prestigious institutions, including the University of Michigan, Missouri University of Science and Technology, and University of California, Berkeley, to name a few,” said Dunzik-Gougar. “Our students will be at the forefront of developing the technology that will help power the future.”  

For more information on ISU’s Department of Nuclear Engineering, visit isu.edu/ne.