PhD Students Danielle Praag, Josh Hobbins, Josh Hughes and Pranav Sabuji from the NFI were given the opportunity to visit the Jozef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana, Slovenia as part of The Nuclear Energy Futures Centre for Doctoral Training.
The visit took place across two days. Whilst there they conducted three experiments on the TRIGA test reactor.
The first experiment was to determine the reactors response to step reactivity changes. The second experiment was on neutron activation analysis and determining whether they could transform platinum to gold using radioactive decay. The final experiment was determining the localised void coefficient across ten positions in the reactor through inserting air into the reactor to simulate boiling.
Following the experiments they were given the opportunity to visit their exhibition on nuclear energy. The exhibitions included several interactive exhibits, legacy nuclear equipment and a replica control room.
They were also fortunate to attend an alumni event conducted at the institute lead by the British Embassy in Slovenia. This event discussed Europe’s net-zero targets, employment prospects in both the UK and Slovenia’s nuclear sector and the ongoing developments within the industry.
On reflection of the event, Josh Hughes said “The working visit to the Jozef Stefan Institute gave me hands-on experience operating a nuclear reactor and a better understating of the theoretical knowledge such as achieving criticality by seeing how it is applied in practice.”
