Purdue's nuclear research focuses on improvements

By Megan Finnerty
Assistant Campus Editor

In a recently published list by the U.S. Energy Department, more than 40 colleges were named as possible sites over the last 50 years for nuclear-weapons research. Purdue is on the list.

But Arden Bement, the head of the School of Nuclear Engineering, said that even though the professor who started the School of Nuclear Engineering in 1955 was from Los Alamos Laboratories, where the bulk of U.S. nuclear-weapons research is done, no weapons research has ever been done at Purdue.

"Research has been focused on the effect of radiation on materials and on processes and reactor safety," Bement said. "The bulk of our research is on how to build safer reactors, nuclear medicine and space propulsion involved in long-term space travel."

Karl Ott, a professor of nuclear engineering, has studied reactor safety, global warming effects and nuclear medicine applications in treating a certain type of brain tumors.

"I've stayed as far away from weapons research as possible," he said with a smile.

Bement said weapons research is often done in laboratories, not at universities. "It's done at a very secret level and done at secret labs like Los Alamos or Livermore," he said. "We may develop some special analytical codes that might be useful for weapons research, but we don't design it for just that purpose."

With much of the research funded by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Purdue studies safety and analytical codes and designs reactors and fuel that go beyond what today's reactors can do. University scientists are working on designing reactors that are easier to build, automatic, safer and proliferation free, which means the nuclear material cannot be extracted for weapons use.

The codes help the commission determine safety standards for reactors and procedures among other things.

"We not only develop the codes but we do the physical research that helps validate and support the codes," Bement said. To do this, they use some unusual equipment on campus — a mini reactor powered by electricity and the PUR Reactor, a one-kilowatt swimming pool reactor in the basement of the Duncan annex.

Bement said Purdue focuses on researching concepts that have important societal implications and produces research that is unclassified and can be published in public journals.

A number of ongoing research projects involve developing safer, cleaner and more efficient types of nuclear fuel, including thermo-nuclear fusion. Thermo-nuclear fusion in the fusing together of elements, trying to create the type of energy created by the sun.

Purdue's nuclear research focuses on improvements

Judges to announce top 20 teams in business contest

FunFest creates excitement about physics

Student to speak on diversity

Purdue offers new study abroad program in Prague

CAMPUS DESK PHONE:
(765) 743-1111 ext. 253

Campus editor: Kelly Lucas

Assistant campus editors: Megan Finnerty, Mary Jester

To send a letter to the editor, please email opinions@purdueexponent.org