A collaboration agreement was recently signed between Framatome, The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU). The agreement formalizes the parties’ scientific collaboration for the development of a joint doctoral research in the field of nuclear energy and reactor physics. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev is the academic partner in this industry-government-academia collaboration.
Prof. Erez Gilad, head of the Reactor Physics Group at the Unit of Nuclear Engineering, will lead the project on behalf of BGU together with Dr. Daniele Tomatis on behalf of CEA and with the Department of Codes and Methods at Framatome. The scientific research is organized as a Ph.D. studentship at BGU, jointly supervised by Prof. Gilad and Dr. Tomatis. The research will be conducted mainly in the Unit of Nuclear Reactor Physics and Applied Mathematics (SERMA) at CEA-Saclay laboratories and in the Department of Codes and Methods at Framatome-Paris, with a period in the Reactor Physics Group at BGU.
It is the first time such a collaboration agreement is signed between BGU and Framatome, an international leader in nuclear energy plants and services supplier, and the second time such an agreement is signed between BGU and CEA, a global key-player in research and development for nuclear energy. This agreement is expected to further establish the Reactor Physics Group at BGU as a valuable scientific and academic player internationally.
Modern reactor designs include more complex and heterogeneous nuclear cores. These core designs challenge existing computational paradigms and necessitate innovative breakthroughs. This research, entitled “Towards optimal transport approximations by diffusion in nuclear reactor analysis,” aims at developing innovative methodologies to improve computational simulation capabilities, thus reinforcing Framatome’s background to assess modern reactors.