Course syllabus

Course-PM academic year 2024/2025

TRA410 Nuclear reactor technology - past, present and future lp1-2 HT24 (7.5 hp)

Course is offered by Tracks

Welcome to the TRACKS course on Nuclear reactor technology - past, present and future. This document provides some practical information about the course. Please read this document carefully. In case of questions, do not hesitate to get in touch with the teacher responsible for the course.

Purpose of the course

Nuclear power technology has been a major asset since the mid-70s for decarbonizing electricity generation and for decreasing our reliance on fossil fuel. With more than 400 nuclear reactors currently in operation worldwide (more than 90 being in Western Europe) and more than 50 under construction, nuclear reactors will play a significant role for many years to come. By following this course, you will be able to understand the development of this technology from its early days, how it works, its advantages, disadvantages, limitations, and how it contributes to some of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

Prerequisites

The course is open to all 4th and 5th year students (MSc level), as well as to PhD students. Other attendees could also be, e.g., ERASMUS students at the MSc level, Chalmers Alumni, Chalmers employees and professionals active in Sweden. The course is first and foremost directed to students learning engineering or having an engineering background. All main concepts are derived from first principles in the course, making the course easily accessible to all students.

Overall learning objectives and syllabus

When you successfully complete the course, you will be able to:

Explain the working principles of nuclear power plants and of the various reactor generations/technologies.
Discuss and weigh their advantages, disadvantages, and limitations, taking ethical aspects into consideration.
Appreciate the impacts of nuclear power technology in a climate-change mitigation perspective.
Reflect upon the use of different reactor technologies depending on various factors, such as resource maximization, waste minimization, etc.
Know the governing equations describing neutron transport, flow transport, and heat transfer in nuclear reactors.
Solve such governing equations for simple systems.
Understand the multi-physics and multi-scale aspects of nuclear reactors.
Understand the behaviour of nuclear reactors during nominal and off-nominal conditions.
Work and communicate in an intercultural environment, taking advantage of the multidisciplinary competences of colleagues.

The syllabus on Studieportalen is available at:

Study plan

Overall pedagogical set-up and course design

The course relies on the concept of active learning, according to which students learn much more efficiently when they participate in engaging activities in the classroom with the support from the teachers. To make room for such activities, a flipped classroom is used, with the traditional delivery of lecture-based contents moved outside of the classroom: lecture and materials usually presented in class are instead made available to the students on the web and before as self-paced learning resources.
Each part of the course is made of the following elements:

Handbooks/textbooks/papers covering the theoretical aspects of the covered topics (for some parts).
Pre-recorded lectures (or webcasts) available for on-demand viewing and extracting the main features, results, and concepts of the handbooks/textbooks/papers.
Online quizzes associated with the webcasts, focusing on conceptual understanding, with immediate feedback to the students on their learning.
The possibility to pose questions to the teacher while watching the lectures.
Active learning sessions in forms of wrap-up, tutorials, group discussions and group project work with synchronous interactions between the students and the teachers.
Use of discussion fora monitored by the teachers.

The entire management of all electronic resources is done on Canvas.

The course is followed by both Chalmers students and external students. The active learning sessions are thus offered in a hybrid form: the external students can follow the sessions online, whereas Chalmers students follow the sessions onsite, i.e., in the classroom at Chalmers. Chalmers students are thus required to attend the sessions onsite.

Contents of the course

Three main themes are covered in the course:

History of nuclear power development. After introducing some elementary concepts in nuclear physics and radiation science, as well the basic working principles of nuclear reactors, the history of world nuclear power development is presented. The different generations of nuclear reactors are also detailed.
Technology and physics of nuclear reactors. The technological aspects of nuclear power plants are first presented, before focusing on the nuclear core, i.e., the part of the system containing the nuclear fuel assemblies. The various physical phenomena of importance in the core are described, and the corresponding governing equations derived. Such equations are solved in simple enough situations/configurations to gain physical understanding. The control and operation of nuclear reactors are finally tackled, before introducing the basic principles of nuclear power safety.
Nuclear power, saving the world? The entire fuel cycle in relation to nuclear reactors is introduced. The last part of the course then focuses on nuclear fuel resources, the risks associated with nuclear reactor technology in general and the proliferation risks in particular, and the future prospects of this technology. The ethical aspects of nuclear power are also covered

The course is divided into several modules:

A module called “Introduction”, in which the present document can be found.
A module called “Tracks Professional Skills – Sustainability”.
A module called “Tracks Professional Skills – Intercultural Communication”.
A module called “History of nuclear power development”.
A module called “Nuclear reactor technologies”.
A module called “Heat balance of a nuclear power plant and nuclear reactors as multi-physics and multi-scale systems”.
A module called “Physics of steady-state neutron transport”.
A module called “Physics of non-steady-state neutron transport”.
A module called “Nuclear thermal-hydraulics”.
A module called “Reactor design and control”.
A module called “Introduction to nuclear power safety”.
A module called "Nuclear power: saving the world?".

The first modules (1 to 3) are self-paced learning modules, whereas the last modules (4 to 12) both contain some self-paced learning elements and activities to be carried out during the scheduled sessions. Instructions specific to each module can be found in Canvas under the sub-heading “ReadMe first!” in each of the modules. Please carefully read those instructions to get detailed instructions pertaining to those modules.

Course organization and schedule

The course extends over the two first study periods of the fall term. The course represents 200 hours of full-time studies for the students. Those 200 hours are roughly split as follows:

Preparatory work amounting to 6 hours/week x 14 weeks = 84 hours of self-studies, which include reading the handbooks/textbooks/papers, watching the webcasts, answering the quizzes, and interacting with the teacher.
Interactive active learning sessions amounting to 116 hours, split as follows:
- 4 hours/session x 14 weeks of synchronous activities = 56 hours.
- 4 hours/week x 15 weeks of post-class activities = 60 hours.

The dates/times of the interactive (synchronous) sessions can be found at:
TimeEdit
(choose “Chalmers tekniska högskola” and thereafter enter the course code TRA410 in the search bar, if needed).
The location of the teaching room can also be found at the link above.

The modules are planned as follows:

Module 1-3: preparatory work to be completed by September 4 + interactive (synchronous) session on September 5, 08:00-11:45.
Module 4: preparatory work to be completed by September 11 + interactive (synchronous) session on September 12, 08:00-11:45.
Module 5: preparatory work to be completed by September 18 + interactive (synchronous) session on September 19, 08:00-11:45. If the weather allows it, this session will be a field trip to Änggårdsbergen in Mölndal to measure background radiations (in case of bad weather, some prior measurement data will be provided to the students and the session will be organized on Chalmers campus). This session will be led by Doc. Anders Nordlund, radiation protection expert.
Module 6: preparatory work to be completed by September 25 + interactive (synchronous) session on September 26, 08:00-11:45.
Module 7: preparatory work to be completed by October 2, October 6 and October 16 + corresponding interactive (synchronous) sessions on October 3, 08:00-11:45, then October 7, 08:00-11:45, and finally October 17, 08:00-11:45.
Module 8: preparatory work to be completed by October 24 and November 7 + corresponding interactive (synchronous) sessions on October 25, 13:15-17:00 and November 8, 13:15-17:00.
Module 9: preparatory work to be completed by November 10 and November 18 + corresponding (synchronous) sessions on November 11, 13:15-17:00 and November 19, 13:15-17:00.
Module 10: preparatory work to be completed by November 25 + interactive (synchronous) session on November 26, 13:15-17:00.
Module 11: preparatory work to be completed by December 4 and December 12 + interactive (synchronous) sessions on December 5 and 6, 08:00-17:00 and December 13, 13:15-17:00, respectively. The sessions on December 5 and 6 are hands-on exercises on the Jožef Stefan Institute TRIGA reactor, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Ten Chalmers MSc students will be offered to travel to Ljubljana (accommodation and travel expenses are covered by Chalmers), whereas the other students will follow the exercises remotely. The selection of the students travelling to Ljubljana will be made on the students' course results. The session on December 13 will be led by the consultancy company Afry.
Module 12: preparatory work to be completed by December 18 + interactive (synchronous) sessions on December 19, 13:15-17:00. The session on December 19 will be led by the utility Vattenfall.

Teachers

Prof. Christophe Demazière demaz@chalmers.se is the main teacher of the course, course examiner and responsible for the overall administration of the course. Some guests will intervene during some of the sessions, as explained in the section "Course organization and schedule" above.

To communicate with the teachers, use primarily Canvas.

Course credits and examination form

The course is worth 7.5 ECTS. There is no final examination. The graded activities are activities to be taken through each module along the entire course.

Modules 1-3 do not contribute to the final score.
Module 4 has a weight of 7% to the final score (3% for the asynchronous work and 4% for the synchronous work).
Module 5 has a weight of 7% to the final score (3% for the asynchronous work and 4% for the synchronous work).
Module 6 has a weight of 7% to the final score (3% for the asynchronous work and 4% for the synchronous work).
Module 7 has a weight of 21% to the final score (9% for the asynchronous work and 12% for the synchronous work).
Module 8 has a weight of 14% to the final score (6% for the asynchronous work and 8% for the synchronous work).
Module 9 has a weight of 14% to the final score (6% for the asynchronous work and 8% for the synchronous work).
Module 10 has a weight of 7% to the final score (3% for the asynchronous work and 4% for the synchronous work).
Module 11 has a weight of 16% to the final score (7% for the asynchronous work and 9% for the synchronous work).
Module 12 has a weight of 7% to the final score (3% for the asynchronous work and 4% for the synchronous work).

The asynchronous work needs to be completed on time, as specified in the Section "Course organization and schedule" above. The possibility to complete the asynchronous work closes for each module at the dates specified above. Not completing the asynchronous work on time thus results in a lowering of the overall score on the course. Note that the number of attempts on quizzes during the asynchronous work is limited and depends on the number of offered alternatives. An average grade will be applied, reflecting the number of attempts.

The grades are based on your synchronous modules scores, final score and the approval on an essay on intercultural communication, as follows:

Fail: you obtained strictly less than 50% of the maximum total score for the entire course, or did not obtain at least 50% of the maximum module synchronous score on each of the modules 4-12, or did not submit an essay on intercultural communication, or your essay on intercultural communication was not approved.
Grade 3: you obtained more than 50% of the maximum total score for the entire course and strictly less than 67.5% of the maximum total score for the entire course, you obtained at least 50% of the maximum module synchronous score on each of the modules 4-12, and you submitted an essay on intercultural communication that was approved.
Grade 4: you obtained more than 67.5% of the maximum total score for the entire course and strictly less than 82.5% of the maximum total score for the entire course, you obtained at least 50% of the maximum module synchronous score on each of the modules 4-12, and you submitted an essay on intercultural communication that was approved.
Grade 5: you obtained more than 82.5% of the maximum total score for the entire course, you obtained at least 50% of the maximum module synchronous score on each of the modules 4-12, and you submitted an essay on intercultural communication that was approved.

You need to work on all modules in their sequential order. As can be seen above, the course requires a minimum and constant effort during the entire duration of the course.

The asynchronous quizzes must be completed by the corresponding deadlines. After the deadline, the quizzes become unavailable, resulting in lower chances to pass the course.

Course literature

For some of the topics covered in the course, handbooks that you need to read are available on the course page, via a collaborative platform called Perusall. This platform allows you to comment, ask questions, etc. on the contents you read and interact on the contents with other students and with the teacher. The first time you access Perusall, take a few extra minutes to take the guided tour, so that you will be able to fully utilize the capabilities of the platform.