NUCLEAR, PLASMA, AND RADIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING

Head of the Department: James F. Stubbins

Correspondence and Admission Information: Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering, 214 Nuclear Engineering Laboratory, 103 South Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801-2984; (217) 333-3598; E-mail: nuclear@uiuc.edu

URL: www.ne.uiuc.edu

GRADUATE DEGREE PROGRAMS

The Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering offers programs leading to a master of science and doctor of philosophy degrees in nuclear engineering.

ADMISSION

Application for admissions to the master's and doctoral degree programs is open to all graduates in engineering, mathematics, and the physical sciences with an average grade of B or better for the last 60 hours of undergraduate work and any graduate work completed. Prerequisites for admission include a course in ordinary differential equations plus one other mathematics course beyond calculus; an intermediate course in atomic and nuclear physics or interaction of radiation with matter; a course in electrical circuit theory; a course in thermodynamics; a course in fluid mechanics, continuum mechanics, biology, or physiology; and a course in introduction to nuclear, plasma and radiological engineering. A student may be admitted before completion of these prerequisites, but he or she must allow additional time to make up for these deficiencies; courses taken to make up such deficiencies will not count toward the number of units required for the graduate degree. Transcripts and letters of recommendation are required and information such as undergraduate class rank is recommended. International students must demonstrate proficiency in English, as measured by the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and Speaking Proficiency English Assessment Kit (SPEAK), with minimum scores of 570 on the paper-based TOEFL (230 on the computer-based test) and 50 on the SPEAK. They may be required to take courses in English as a second language, as determined by English Placement Tests taken on campus.

MASTER OF SCIENCE

The M.S. degree takes at least two semesters and a summer session to complete and normally takes three semesters and a summer session. Eight units of graduate work are required, including an M.S. thesis. The curriculum requires courses covering the fundamentals of nuclear engineering and radiation interaction with matter, plus two or more courses in an area of concentration chosen by the student in consultation with an adviser. Typical areas are: fission systems including reactor physics, radiation transport, reactor safety, fuel cycl es, and radioactive waste management; nuclear thermal hydraulics; nuclear materials; fusion systems and related instrument applications including health and medical physics; MRI applications, radiation protection, and radiation based therapy and imaging; and computational methods, including Lie Group, integral-differential equation, Monte Carlo, and fuzzy logic applications.

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Course requirements for the Ph.D. degree include at least eight units of course credit beyond that required for the M.S. degree. In addition, eight or more units of doctoral thesis credit are required and typically take two or more additional years to complete. Students desiring to work toward the Ph.D. degree must pass the departmental qualifying examination to be admitted to doctoral study. The doctoral candidate must complete coursework, pass a preliminary doctoral examination, write a doctoral thesis, and successfully defend the thesis at a final examination before a doctoral faculty commitee. A doctoral student typically takes several courses in nuclear engineering plus additional courses that support a specialized research area and/or provide background in mathematics and science and that satisfy a minor in a related discipline. There is no foreign language requirement. Under exceptional circumstances and by approved petition, doctoral research maybe undertaken off campus.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Faculty research interests cover a wide range including, but not limited to, those listed above under the master of science section. Faculty in other related fields are available to supervise research for students through formal "affiliate faculty" appointments.

FACILITIES

Several major facilities are available for nuclear engineering research. A dense plasma focus fusion-related device for high-temperature plasma studies and an ultrahigh-vacuum laboratory for plasma-material interaction studies are available. The College of Engineering's Materials Research Laborator y and Materials Engineering-Mechanical Behavior Program provide a variety of facilities for studies of nuclear materials. Other laboratories are also available for environmental studies and nuclear spectroscopy; health physics and radiation studies; nuclear waste management; thermal hydraulics and reactor safety; reactor physics and reactor kinetics; controlled nuclear fusion; direct energy conversion; lasers and plasma physics; and magnetic resonance imaging. The College of Engineering is a leader in supercomputer research, and the campus houses one of the National Centers for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). In addition, microcomputers are available for student use and are integrated into laboratory courses and for data acquisition. The department is also a participating member of the Computational Science and Engineering Program.

FINANCIAL AID

Fellowships and traineeships are generally available to support the best applicants. Aid in the form of research assistantships is available on a competitive basis for most other graduate students. Other work of a professional nature can sometimes be found in the University or surrounding community. If the number of students is more than the department can assist financially, support is awarded according to academic merit.