Lewis Dixon

Lewis has completed a BSc in Computer Science, and an MSc in Advanced Computer Science (in which he received the award for best Advanced Computer Science Masters student) at Bangor University. Following this he proceeded to apply for a KESS2 funded Masters by research with the Nuclear Futures Institute, as a way to diversify his computing skillset and to develop knowledge in a rapidly progressing area of science.

Lewis’s project is a single year, in partnership with EDF Energy, and is looking at the relationship between high burnup fuel and its susceptibility to fragment and pulverize under accident conditions in PWRs. This project aims to use computational simulation and out of pile LOCA experiment data to produce a model that can be implemented into EDF’s fuel performance code, that takes a number of fuel parameters over its lifetime and predicts a pulverization fraction. The model could help with designing fuels more resistant to fuel irradiation damage and help operators better predict safe fuel operation lifetimes.

Prior to this project, Lewis had very little knowledge of the chemistry and characteristics of Nuclear Fuel, being a computer scientist, but has adapted well to the challenge of learning the required knowledge.