Engineering Experience

      My engineering experience is in the form of academic classes. I recently graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Nuclear Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University. While in school I completed engineering projects in several classes, whether they were more mathematically or literature based depended on the class.

TRAC/RELAP Advanced Computational Engine (TRACE):

      I have had two classes use the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission's TRACE/RELAP Advanced Computational Engine, a thermo-hydraulic code. For each of these classes I was given a situation to simulate.

      For one class my group was given a list of a few defined constants as well as a longer list of ranges for other constants. The intent of the project was to simulate the operation of a four loop pressurized water reactor nuclear power plant similar to the Indian Unit 2 reactor. The final outcome of this project was then reported in a final technical report. This final report can be found here.

      For my senior design project my group was assigned to develop simulations of Sandia National Laboratory's zirconium fuel bundle (FB) ignition tests and layout maximum conditions for a further experiment. The first step was to model the two Sandia tests in TRACE before altering the working fluid for further experiments. The models created in TRACE were then tuned to the Sandia data prior to changing the working fluid from air, the original medium, to water. The data created from the new models will be used as a reference for the practical experimentation of a zirconium FB ignition test with water as the working fluid. The final published report can be found here.

Literature Projects:

      I have completed two major works on the environmental impact of the nuclear fuel cycle. One instance was for my Introduction to Air Pollution, this report can be found here. The other was for an abstract submitted to and accepted by the American Nuclear Society for the 2013 ANS Student Conference. The abstract can be found here.