Principal Engineer (Fuel Performance and Development)

Our client is seeking a highly motivated Principal Engineer to support the Natrium Nuclear Fuel Development and Qualification team. In this role you will contribute to the design, development, testing and qualification of nuclear fuel and other core components. You will work as part of a high functioning teams developing and qualifying fuel for the next generation of nuclear reactors.

Responsibilities:

• Perform thermo-mechanical analysis of fuel rods and other sodium fast reactor core components to support core/plant design activities, irradiation testing, and code benchmarking
• Work with interdisciplinary team of engineers to ensure fuel and absorber designs meet their overall objectives
• Develop fuel and material models and analysis methods
• Compose and review technical documents to support core/reactor plant design, licensing, software verification and validation, and testing activities
• Design and execute sensitivity studies to understand the effects and validity of various modeling assumptions, including meshing, physics coupling, material models, design tolerances
• Development of software and databases for cataloging experiments and analysis
• Create formal documentation of nuclear fuels methods software requirements, design, implementation, and testing in support of licensing client’s reactors.
• Update, improve, and/or create software to satisfy all licensing requirements during the Verification and Validation (V&V) process
• Support software and document reviews in areas of fuel performance modeling, fuel performance, or other areas of subject expertise
• Build and apply methods to assess the propagation of uncertainty and their effect on safety margins
• Enhance engineering team's ability to build models and make meaningful conclusions from simulation output through input tools, visualization, reports, etc.
• Support irradiation testing by performing fuel performance assessments for pre-test predictions or support interpretation of test results, prepare test plans, and prepare test reports summarizing results

Key Qualifications and Skills:

• Bachelor’s degree in Nuclear, Mechanical, or Materials Engineering.
• A minimum of 10 years of experience in fuel performance modeling or thermo-mechanical analysis
• Strong skills in the areas of finite element methods, heat transfer, solid mechanics, non-linear visco-elastic material behavior, behavior of nuclear fuels and irradiation effects on materials
• Experience with numerical methods and computational algorithms
• Programs: ABAQUS, ANSYS, COMSOL, MOOSE, or equivalent FEA codes
• Programming languages: PYTHON, FORTRAN
• Experience in understanding and executing nuclear fuel design and analysis methodologies ideally with a focus on fast-neutron reactors
• Experience interfacing with manufacturing vendors/engineers to account for the impacts of manufacturing tolerances/limitations on component design
• Excellent technical writing, communication, and presentation skills
• Attention to detail and aspiration for technical excellence
• Possess ability to work on tasks that require a multi-disciplinary approach
• Experience in performing design activities to applicable requirements such as NQA-1, ASME B&PV, AWS, 10 CFR 50, Appendix B, or equivalent preferred
• Experience interacting on nuclear methodology with the NRC under an ASME NQA-1 compliant QA environment preferred
• Excellent “under-the-hood” knowledge of the methods of reactor physics analysis, finite element models, constitutive material models desired
• Ability to integrate and automate simulation tools desired
• Ability to consistently deliver to an aggressive schedule
• Self-motivated: able to seek out tasks and produce value aligned with team goals without waiting for next assignment
• Willingness to openly give and accept professional criticism through technical reviews and other venues
• The successful candidate will possess a high degree of trust and integrity, communicate openly and display respect, and a desire to foster teamwork