Company Description

By 2050, the planet could be using twice as much electricity compared to today. Are you interested in contributing and helping to shape the future of the world's energy? If so, read on.

Fusion, the process that powers the Sun and Stars, is one of the most promising options for generating the cleaner, carbon-free energy that our world badly needs.

UKAEA leads the way in realizing fusion energy, partnering with industry and research for groundbreaking advancements. Our goal is to bring fusion electricity to the grid, supported by tomorrow's power stations. In pursuit of our mission, UKAEA embraces core values: Innovative, Committed, Trusted, and Collaborative.

Job Description

The Role

Are you looking for an exciting opportunity to make a difference? Join our team and contribute to the future of fusion energy.

We offer excellent opportunities for motivated and enthusiastic undergraduate students studying at UK Universities to join our 8-12-week summer placement scheme. The scheme is designed for students entering their penultimate or final year of studies, with potential opportunities post-graduation.

Our scheme gives you a unique opportunity to contribute to the development of one of the most advanced sources of sustainable and clean energy. During your summer programme, you will experience a broad range of diverse tasks, work on real projects, and gain invaluable experience within the fusion energy sector. UKAEA offers a nurturing and supportive community for you to gain some valuable work experience in a fascinating and rapidly evolving industry.

Overview

Modelling of tritium induced nuclear reactions

Most current fusion reaction designs plan to use tritium (a radioactive isotope of hydrogen) as a fuel. As this is rare in nature, such devices will include tritium breeding technologies to ensure fuel self-sufficiency. To achieve this an understanding of all potential tritium loss mechanisms is needed. One possible, but current poorly quantified, loss mechanism is energetic tritium inducing secondary nuclear reactions which consume the tritium. Accurate cross sections for such reactions are needed to ensure complete fuel cycle modelling.

The project will cover reaction modelling of tritium-induced nuclear reactions on targets relevant to breeder blankets (Li, H, He, etc). The student will investigate current tritium-nucleus scattering potentials and optimise the parametrisation for the relevant targets as needed. These potentials can then be used in nuclear reaction codes to calculate cross sections for the nuclear reactions which result in tritium loss. These can be compared to existing experimental data alongside any pre-existing predictions. With these the student could perform indicative calculations of rate of tritium loss via secondary nuclear reactions."

Qualifications

Essential Requirements:

• To be considered you will need to be working towards a relevant degree and will be required to have the right to work in the UK.

Additional Information

A full list of our benefits can be found here https://careers.ukaea.uk/life-at-ukaea/employee-benefits/

UKAEA's mission is clean energy for all, and we welcome talented people from all backgrounds who want to help us achieve our mission. We are under-represented from some groups and so want to encourage applications in particular from women in STEM, people from Black British Caribbean and African backgrounds and from Pakistani and Bangladeshi British backgrounds. Our Executive team, supported by our 'Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion' (EDI) and Wellbeing and our EDI Networks actively promote Inclusion and takes steps to increase diversity within our organization. We reinforce best practices in recruitment and selection and evaluate approaches to remove barriers to success.

UK Atomic Energy Authority is committed to being accessible. Please email talent@ukaea.uk if you have any questions or require help or adjustments to compete on a fair basis, for example, changes to the way we interview or share information.

Please note that vacancies are generally advertised for 4 weeks but may close earlier if we receive a large number of applications.