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On July 9th, we had the pleasure of hosting the Nuclear and AI Outreach and K12 Education Workshop. The event showcased the great work of Ms. Marchan Jackson, who presented an educational module aimed at middle school students (grades 6-8). This innovative module, designed to introduce young learners to the field of nuclear engineering, will be available on Canvas and has the potential to be adopted by numerous other schools, nurturing future generations of engineers and nuclear specialists.

The workshop also featured a series of insightful presentations from our esteemed colleagues, each highlighting their cutting-edge research in the fields of robotics, artificial intelligence, and nuclear technology. Sungmin Kim and Youndo Do shared the overview robotics project and demonstrated quadruped simulation in our digital twin. Stephen Yoo discussed the intricacies of Molten Salt Reactors (MSR), offering a comprehensive overview of this promising nuclear technology. The event underscored the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and the pivotal role of education in shaping the future of technology and engineering. The enthusiastic participation and engagement of all attendees made the workshop a truly memorable and impactful experience.

We look forward to continuing our efforts in educational outreach and fostering a deeper understanding of nuclear engineering and advanced technologies among young students.

Bradley (Brad) J. Adams, vice president of technical compliance at Plant Vogtle Units 3 and 4, affiliated to Southern Nuclear, visited iFAN lab and had a meeting session with the students. The lab proudly introduced the current research in progress, including the hardware-in-the-loop simulator and the flow loop. Brad introduced the importance of cybersecurity to newly constructed plants and shared his experience of being in the industry. This visit was a great academia-industry interaction and gave the lab valuable experience.

Dr. Zhang had the honor of hosting Mr. Brad Adams, Vice President of Technical Compliance at Southern Nuclear’s Vogtle Units 3&4, for a jointly-hosted Georgia Tech ME and ANS-GA Section Colloquium at the GTMI auditorium on September 14. More than 50 attendees including faculty, and industry professionals, and Georgia Tech students joined the talk and discussion. Mr. Adams talked about the digitalization of the light water reactors (LWRs) and the current agendas focused in newly constructed plants, including the cybersecurity needs for the 17,000 critical digital assets.

Congratulations! Dr. Fan Zhang, assistant professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the lab director of the iFAN lab, has been awarded a Distinguished Early Career Award from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy (NE). Her awards of $625,000 over five years will provide support for her and the lab to develop a robot-assisted online monitoring and maintenance system for nuclear reactors. Her project will integrate a nuclear power plant (NPP) digital twin with data from a pressurized water reactor (PWR) simulator to enable robotic navigation and manipulation research, and will be used to develop algorithms for autonomous fault detection, diagnosis, and risk assessment integrating robot assistance.

Welcome! Assistant Professor Fan Zhang joined the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering on July 1 as a member of the nuclear and radiological engineering program. Before coming, she worked as a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK), where she got her Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering and a concurrent M.S. degree in Statistics. She joined Georgia Tech as a faculty member to stay in academia and contribute to science and technology within one of the best NRE programs and a fantastic and inclusive campus. Her research focuses on instrumentation and control (I&C), which includes online monitoring, diagnostics, prognostics, cybersecurity, autonomous control, and advanced sensing technology. She is designing and building two test beds in the iFAN lab, where one is an experimental flow loop with industrial network architecture and the other is a hardware-in-the-loop advanced full scope simulation test bed.

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