Partial view of
the
Nuclear Engineering
Center |
Mission
To produce scientific knowledge, to develop technology,
to
perform services and to offer an education of the highest quality in the
nuclear engineering field and correlated areas, contributing for the
safe use of nuclear energy and for the improvement of the
Brazilian population life quality.
This Annual Report summarizes information relevant to the service and research activities of the Nuclear Engineering Center (CEN). I wish to highlight for you some of the important data and trends.
In 2002 the engineering services provided by CEN were certified with the ISO 9001:2000. They are performed for power and research reactors, and for conventional thermal plants, mainly to solve problems related to design, operation, aging of components, “in service” inspection, and plant safety upgrading. From 2002 to 2004 our number of clients has increased steadfastly and today we are performing services for Brazilian industries and government programs that require or depend upon nuclear engineering and correlated areas.
Our graduate and post graduate students have increased in this period, and both staff and students continue to be very active in research. The research support is primarily from sponsored agencies, like as CNPq, IAEA, and FAPESP. This support has been used to upgrade our laboratories.
I am pleased to report that several experiments have been carried out in our laboratories, mainly in our principal laboratory, the IPEN-MB/01 reactor, including the experimental characterization of five critical configurations for the International Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation Project (ICSDEP) under management of NEA Data Bank and INEEL (USA). Also a BNCT research facility was projected and constructed contributing to the under way activities in the medical physics area of CEN.
New generation of nuclear reactors (advanced and innovative) has become an important part of our research program. Participation in programs like IRIS (International Reactor Innovative and Secure), INPRO (International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactor and Fuel Cycles), Generation IV Roadmap, and IAEA technical working group in fast system are being an opportunity to keep contact with the international status of the art on this research field.
Also, in the period 2002-2004 we have increased partnership with Brazilian institutes and universities, mainly in the areas of structural analysis and structural integrity evaluation, and monitoring and diagnosis of systems and equipment of nuclear and industrial plants. Several important research activities are reported in these areas here.
Finally is to highlight the cooperation among CEN, CRPq (Research Reactor Center) and CCN (Nuclear Fuel Center) concerning aspects related to the management of research reactor spent fuel, design and qualification of research reactor fuels, research reactor thermal hydraulics and safety, and probabilistic safety assessment and reliability engineering.
I invite you to read on ...
Antonio Teixeira e Silva
Manager
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