The Department of Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M University has continued to grow and evolve throughout these unprecedented times. Our year was remarkable in many ways and this year holds great promise for the future of the department.
Our faculty and former students continue to conduct remarkable research and meet unchartered milestones. Dr. Lin Shao, who collaborated with researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Hokkaido University, helped create the next generation of high-performance oxide-dispersion strengthened alloys. So far, they are some of the strongest and best-developed metals in the field.
Dr. Jean Ragusa and Dr. Mauricio Eduardo Tano Retamales investigated pebble-bed reactors, a very-high temperature, fourth-generation reactor. Together, they developed a Coupled Computational Fluid Dynamics-Discrete Element Model to study bypass flow in these reactors. This model can now be applied to all types of pebble-bed reactors, as well as assist vendors in designing safer and more efficient reactors in the future.
As we approach 2022, I am thankful for the faculty, staff and students who are paving the way toward excellence. I hope you enjoy hearing about the innovative and award-winning research conducted in the department of nuclear engineering.
Thanks and Gig ’em!
Dr. Michael Nastasi
Professor and Department Head of Nuclear Engineering
Sallie and Don Davis ’61 Professorship in Engineering