Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has taken the wraps off a state-of-the-art nuclear training center.
RPI has unveiled its Energy Exploration (E2) Center at the Jonsson Engineering Center. The lab offers students preparing for careers in the field of nuclear energy hands-on training, allowing them to operate a virtual nuclear plant in a simulated control room. It will be used to enhance undergraduate courses.
Antoinette Maniatty heads the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering at the private college in Troy.
"This facility simulates the control room of a small modular reactor where students and faculty can try out being operators under different operational conditions. I believe this is one of the first new scale simulator control rooms in the northeastern United States. The control room simulator will be used in classes, for research, a stop for tour groups, and for science, technology, engineering and mathematics outreach activities, to our area secondary schools to encourage the next generation of engineers and scientists. Our students are excited about the opportunity for hands-on exercises that this facility will afford," said Maniatty.
Caleb Malinowski, a Burnt Hills area native, is a first year PhD student at RPI. He plans to spend as much time as possible in the new training center.
"I love the hands on aspect," Malinowski said. "Most of the work here is theoretical and analysis based. So now I get to see kind of more so what the industry looks like outside of academia, so I can see actual applications of what I'm doing here. So it gets me excited for the future and future career plans and paths, and also validates things that I'm, you know, analyzing here in my office, and I can go see, you know, what the real world implications of that may look like."
Malinowski works and studies in the thermal hydraulics lab overseen by Assistant Professor of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering Shanbin Shi: "So with this simulator, we aim to first enrich the undergraduate curriculum by integrating a series of innovative simulated best teaching materials, so students will obtain hands on experience in operating these advanced, Small Modular nuclear reactors, besides the fundamental principles and the mathematics they learn here at RPI," said Shi. "In addition, we will expand the use of this simulator in both our senior design projects and undergraduate research projects. Students are expect to explore more complex nuclear engineering problems that require them to draw on knowledge from a range of disciplines, such as reactor physics, nuclear demo hydraulics and reactor reliability and safety. We are also committed to make making broad impacts to the regional nuclear community through workforce development."
Shi says he and his colleagues are keen to see how this simulator will shape the future of RPI's nuclear engineering education, as it empowers students to tackle critical challenges involving energy production and sustainability.
Malinowski is majoring in mechanical engineering. He says he's excited about the prospects raised by working in the cutting-edge lab.
"My ultimate dream would to be heat transfer a fluid mechanics analyst for nuclear reactors, looking at the design of the next generation, which is really cool because the SMR here is a perfect example of what a nuclear reactor in the future may look like when compared to the current fleet of our light water reactors. So this has a direct, you know, tie in to what I want to do in the future. So that gets me very excited that I get a glimpse of that," said Malinowski.
Dean of Engineering Shekhar Garde says projects like this initiated by RPI's leadership have contributed to the betterment of humanity.
"It's kind of a fool's game to predict what next technological revolutions will be, but energy will be squarely at the center of that revolution," said Garde.
RPI collaborated with NuScale Power Corporation, a developer of nuclear small modular reactors, to develop and launch the simulator.
