The Purpose
DRIVERS (Developing Researchers with an Interdisciplinary Vision for Engineering Reactor Systems) will train the next generation of nuclear engineers and scientists with the advanced technical, interdisciplinary and digital skills needed to support the UK’s civil and defence nuclear programmes. It is a consortium comprising: 91ÌÒÉ«, Bangor University, University of Bristol, University of Manchester and Swansea University.
The UK’s ambitions for energy security, net zero and national defence all depend on a highly skilled nuclear workforce. From large-scale power stations to emerging small modular and advanced modular reactors, and fleets of nuclear-powered submarines, the design and safe operation of nuclear systems require world-leading expertise across nuclear science and engineering.
DRIVERS will address this national skills need by training doctoral researchers in the integrated design and assessment of nuclear reactor systems. The programme will focus on three critical areas of nuclear engineering — reactor physics, thermal hydraulics and structural integrity — bringing them together through modern digital tools, high-performance computing and data-driven modelling approaches.
The programme
Your PhD will fall under one of these three themes:
Reactor Physics
Reactor physics concerns the behaviour of the reactor core itself and the mechanisms by which energy is generated and controlled. Advances in technology are leading to innovations in fuel, core, shielding and radiation detector design, expanding the design space. Also, HPC, dedicated AI/ML microprocessors, and future quantum computing hardware architectures are revolutionising modelling and simulation in nuclear engineering. Projects will cover radiation transport (nuclear physics, neutron diffusion and transport, reactor kinetics and dynamics), reactor shielding and dosimetry, nuclear criticality safety, radiation detectors, and computational methods (deterministic methods, Monté Carlo methods, multiscale and multiphysics methods, high performance computing as well as associated industrial software).
Thermal Hydraulics
Thermal hydraulics is the mechanism by which energy produced in the reactor core is transferred to a coolant and subsequently used to generate useful power as electricity and heat. The effectiveness of these processes govern much of the performance and safety limits of a nuclear reactor. Through the use of high performance computing (HPC), AI/ML, surrogate models, uncertainty quantification (UQ), and high-fidelity experiments for model validation, there is the opportunity to develop significantly improved thermal-hydraulic design methods that would improve performance, reliability, safety and reduce costs of future nuclear power plants. Projects will cover multiphase and multicomponent computational fluid dynamics; experimental thermal hydraulics, scaling, flow diagnostics; subchannel and system thermal-hydraulic modelling, design-based and severe accident analysis and associated industrial software.
Through-life Structural Integrity
Structural integrity is the ability of the core and plant structures, components and materials to safely operate under expected thermal and inertial loading. Through-life structural integrity is a holistic approach that links the material properties and stresses in components arising from the manufacturing process to its operational performance, enabling accurate lifetime predictions and ensuring safety. Projects will cover integrated modelling and simulation (fluid-structure interaction and materials behaviour), advanced manufacturing including powder and additive approaches, sensors and structural health monitoring, digital twins for advanced lifetime assessments, and advanced experimental testing and analyses.
Core Programme (Year 1): Condensed courses on topics delivered across the partners on:
- Introduction to Nuclear
- Safety and regulation
- Nuclear Innovation and Energy Futures
- AI/MLand Data Science in Nuclear Engineering
5. Familiarisation: Students will have bespoke familiarisation modules with their sponsoring partners.
Technical Elective Themes: An 18-month programme (Y2-3) spanning pairs of cohorts to generate specialist technical depth in their focus areas: Reactor Physics, Thermal Hydraulics or Through-life Structural Integrity.
Core capstone: A 2-6 month industry placement with the sponsor, at their nuclear licensed site. It also incorporates cohort visits to large scale nuclear projects, in the the UK and overseas.
Innovation, Dissemination, 91ÌÒÉ« Skills and 91ÌÒÉ« Integrity: Training in research commercialisation and translation; strategic communication training; and outreach/public engagement.