A primary research direction within the department is support of the continued role of nuclear power in meeting society's energy needs through currently used light-water fission reactors and through development of both fast breeder reactors and fusion reactors for future applications. Other directions being pursued are plasma applications to materials and radiation source development and utilization, including medical applications, advanced computational and analytical methods, thermal sciences, and nuclear materials.
Important contributions have been made recently by several research groups, including: inertial electrostatic confinement for fusion applications and for neutron, x-ray and gamma radiation sources; hydrogen cell performance for energy generation and material transmutations; thermal and epithermal neutron activation analysis in aerosol transport and environmental and other applications; nuclear-pumped lasers as space power sources and direct energy conversion; advanced computational techniques applied to stochastic radiation transport, smoke distribution in buildings, reactor physics and reactor safety, including Lie groups and group invariant difference schemes; perceptual displays and temporal pattern recognition applied to reactor control and operation; nuclear nonproliferation and safeguards; fusion blanket and diverter materials behavior and performance; plasma processing of electronic materials, plasma-induced sputtering and plasma measurements; nuclear radiation effects on materials and neutron scattering measurements; materials behavior under high-temperature corrosion and radiation bombardment environments, including nondestructive examination; combined neutron capture therapy and magnetic resonance imaging for cancer cell treatment; and thermal hydraulics including multi-phase flows, boiling in porous media, and molten jet breakup, and turbulent structure modeling.
In addition, departmental facilities include the Illinois Advanced TRIGA, an above-ground, tank-type reactor with maximum steady-state power of 1.5 MW and peak pulsing power up to 6000 MW. [ru2