Nuclear Engineering
专业介绍
What do nuclear engineers do? They harness the strongest forces of nature to tackle some of society’s biggest challenges: expanding clean energy, diagnosing and curing diseases, traveling to distant planets, and reducing the risk of nuclear weapons.
Our nuclear engineering curriculum will prepare you to launch your career through in-depth, application-based teaching on everything from core fundamentals to the newest technologies. Whether you’re interested in nuclear systems, fusion plasma, radiation sciences (or all three) you can select from a broad range of course offerings that meet your interests. Throughout your entire academic journey, you will be supported by our close-knit learning community of students and professors that care about your success.
Learn more about some of the major applications of nuclear and fusion technologies:
- Generating reliable, clean energy
Nuclear energy is the largest source of clean electricity in the United States. Most nuclear engineers design, build, and operate nuclear power plants—today based on fission of uranium, but in the future, based on fusion of hydrogen. With no greenhouse gas emissions, nuclear energy is a reliable and predictable partner in decarbonizing our economy along with other sources of clean electricity, like wind, solar, and hydro. The impact of nuclear energy will only continue to grow as new technologies are deployed to remove carbon emissions from industrial processes like hydrogen production, water desalination, and steel manufacturing.
- Powering deep-space exploration
Today’s rovers on Mars are powered by nuclear power sources and tomorrow’s spacecraft will need nuclear power to transport humans far into space. Nuclear engineers build radioisotope thermal generators that provide nonstop power with no moving parts to deep-space probes and planetary vehicles, allowing missions that last for many years. Nuclear space propulsion cuts the travel time to other planets by months and surface power ensures reliable energy once the spacecraft lands.
- Diagnosing and curing diseases
With radiation from man-made radioisotopes and particle accelerators, we can diagnose and treat cancer and other diseases. Nuclear engineers in the radiation sciences design systems to generate radioactive tracers that can be injected into patients to pinpoint tumors, stress fractures, and cardiac diseases, while others build accelerators that deliver radiation precisely to diseased tissue while avoiding sensitive organs. Talk to your academic advisor about declaring the Radiation Sciences option. Students must have, and are expected to maintain, a 3.0 cumulative GPA.
- Detecting nuclear weapons
Using advanced radiation detection systems, we can seek out explosives and nuclear weapons being smuggled in shipping containers. Nuclear engineers combine radiation detectors with machine learning and artificial intelligence to not only see objects through thick shields, but also determine the composition of the items inside.
