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Head of the Department: James F. Stubbins
214 Nuclear Engineering Laboratory
103 South Goodwin Avenue
Urbana, IL 61801-2984
(217) 333-3598
E-mail:
nuclear@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.
32 graduate hours 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 cycles, 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 32 graduate hours
of course credit beyond that required for the M.S. degree. In addition,
32 or more graduate hours 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 Laboratory 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.
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