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OCR for page 73
6
IMPLICATIONS OF FUTURE DEMAND _FOR
NUCLEAR ENGINEERING EDUCATION
The previous chapters have addressed the imbalance between projected demand
and supply of nuclear engineers, an imbalance that will result if current
trends in nuclear engineering education continue. Also, changes taking place
in research directions have already been addressed. In this chapter, the
committee identifies changes that appear to be needed in nuclear engineering
education to maintain its vitality and to meet projected demands for qualified
nuclear engineers.
NEEDED CHANGES IN THE UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULUM
The committee performed an analysis of the skills needed by nuclear engineers
for prospective employers, after conducting a survey of institutions and firms
hiring undergraduate and graduate nuclear engineers. Input was sought from a
wide variety of respondents, which ranged from utilities and reactor vendors
to national laboratories and government organizations. Respondents were asked
to rank the importance of 10 different segments of the nuclear engineering
curriculum.
Based on these responses and on the factors influencing the discipline
that were mentioned in previous chapters, it is clear that some modest
modifications in nuclear engineering curricula are needed. Almost
universally, respondents indicated the need for improved oral and written
communication skills. This problem may owe in some degree to the growth in
the number of graduate students for whom English is not a first language.
Such a response relates to engineers in general--in fact, to most
professionals--and seems to indicate the need to enhance communication skills
in this information age; it may also reflect the importance and widespread use
73
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74
of engineering teams in which communication is important. Courses should be
designed for students to exercise and develop communications skills.
The survey also indicated that nuclear engineers at the undergraduate
level need strong skills in reactor physics, reactor operations, health
effects of nuclear radiation, reactor safety, and other areas germane to power
reactor operation for energy production. The present curriculum seems to be
generally successful in providing this training.
Respondents to the survey were asked the nature of the positions for
which nuclear engineers were hired and whether graduates in other engineering
disciplines could be used to fill those positions. The most uniform responses
on this issue were from the nuclear industry concerning nuclear engineers with
bachelor's degrees. These responses indicated that personnel trained in other
engineering disciplines can be used to fill many positions within the
industry; however, nuclear engineers are preferred for positions for which an
understanding of system behavior is desirable. Such positions could include,
for example, serving as shift technical advisor at an operating nuclear power
reactor or performing safety analyses of the behavior of a reactor system. A
reactor plant is an unusually complex system of interrelated components (e.g.,
electrical, radioactive, hydraulic, and mechanical) with immense energy
potentially available for controlled or uncontrolled release. The design,
maintenance, and operation of these systems and components require competence
in physics, mechanics, thermal hydraulics, heat transfer, chemistry, and other
disciplinary areas. Thus, understanding and capability in one field are not
sufficient for some positions in nuclear power plants that focus on systems.
The survey points out a need to strengthen systems education in the nuclear
engineering curriculum.
In the main, however, the present U.S. undergraduate nuclear engineering
curriculum appears to have the proper course content to educate for nuclear
engineering. Further, despite the great differences in educational approaches
in other countries, the basic technical curriculum content seems to be
universal. Enhancements to the curriculum in the area of oral and written
communications, reactor systems engineering, and biological effects of
radiation, are indicated.
In spite of the reasonably satisfactory state of the present curriculum,
some trends do not bode well for nuclear engineering programs. Faculties are
ageing and decreasing in size, and there are few junior faculty being hired.
As class sizes decline, university administrators often do not replace nuclear
engineering faculty who retire or resign. When such faculty are replaced, the
new faculty come from graduate programs with curricula that place less
emphasis on commercial power reactor systems. These trends, if they continue,
will weaken undergraduate teaching in reactor technology and may have a
detrimental effect on the education of undergraduate nuclear engineers needed
in the future. This conclusion suggests that adjustments might be made in
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75
research programs and graduate curricula to ensure understanding of reactor
systems engineering.
NEEDED CHANGES IN THE GRADUATE CURRICULUM
AND RESEARCH PROGRAMS
It was stressed earlier that nuclear engineering research programs are
diversifying. Research related to commercial power reactors has substantially
declined. Much of the funding available is directed to near-term objectives
and is only marginally appropriate for the creative research required for a
graduate degree. Funding for graduate fellowships has also declined.
Although there are such positive arrangements as the Institute of Nuclear
Power Operations (INPO) fellowships and the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE)
Office of Energy Research (OER) nuclear engineering research program,
long-term reactor physics and engineering-oriented research support and
student fellowship support are not sufficient. In particular, the funding
available for research relevant to nuclear power reactors needs to be
increased. The committee survey data indicate that increases in both
fellowships and reactor-relevant research funding can be effective and the
present infrastructure can accommodate more students.
These points do not imply that increases for reactor research funds need
to be large. Nuclear engineering faculty can and should continue to seek
research funding to address other issues. The broadening of the field is a
healthy trend, finding new solutions to important problems. On the other
hand, the national nuclear engineering research program has moved so sharply
away nuclear power directions that some balance of activities seems to be in
order. The 1990 Fiscal Year OER budget of $6 million for nuclear engineering
research, fellowships, research reactor utilization and educational support is
an excellent start. This funding, which was provided by congressional
appropriation, needs to be added again to the administrations's annual budget
submission to Congress. The $4 million research component of this program is
sufficiently long term to be appropriate for universities and is largely
reactor-related.
The committee's judgment is that reactor-related research funding should
represent about 25 to 30 percent of total research funds instead of the
current 15 percent (Table 4-2~. Thus, increasing the research component of
the OER program by $7 million per year, from the present $4 million to $11
million per year, would result in about 27 percent of funding (~$6.5 + $7
million/$43 + $7 million]) being oriented toward reactor-related research.
At about $28,000 per graduate student, this additional $7 million could
support about 250 additional graduate students. The present infrastructure
could absorb such an increase and the infusion of funds would be a major help
in strengthening nuclear engineering education.
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The National Science Foundation (NSF) presently supports 12.3 percent of
research in nuclear engineering programs. This support is in research areas
that are not closely related to nuclear reactors, but are vital to the long-
term vitality of nuclear engineering education. The committee found that
within the nuclear engineering academic community, NSF is perceived to
consider support of nuclear engineering to be a DOE responsibility. An
example given is the recent rejection of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology proposal for an NSF Engineering Research Center in Advanced Nuclear
Power Studies. DOE was apparently perceived by NSF to be the proper sponsor
of the proposed work.
With the emergence of nuclear engineering as a broad-based academic
discipline, no longer tied solely to commercial nuclear power, and with
improving prospects for commercial nuclear power, NSF should again review its
policies toward funding nuclear engineering education. The results of the
recent NSF workshop on this subject could be the starting point for NSF to
more clearly define and promote its policy of support for education and
research in nuclear engineering (NSF, 1989~.
The OER, which has taken the lead in enthusiastically supporting the
valuable, although rather modest, new research program in nuclear engineering,
should monitor nuclear engineering research across all agencies to ensure
adequate coordination. The recommended increase to an $11 million research
program could help ensure a proper balance between reactor-related and other
research in nuclear engineering programs. There also should be a balance
between funding the research of individual investigators and funding that of
larger centers. The NSF has found that such centers, which often involve
several departments on campuses, can provide fresh approaches to difficult
problems.
Research is closely tied to graduate education. In our survey of skills
needed by graduate engineers, the ability to conduct independent research was
the most widely needed skill identified. Again, strong communications skills
and a thorough understanding of nuclear engineering systems were also
indicated. Unless a job specifically requires the expert skills of another
engineering discipline (e.g., the circuit design skills of an electrical
engineer), an engineer from such another discipline could not simply replace
the nuclear engineer without appropriate training. The committee believes
that for jobs associated with power reactors, educational experience is
ideally gained in a nuclear engineering program where at least some reactor
research is conducted. The enhanced nuclear engineering research program
described would lead to better balanced research funding in nuclear
engineering programs, and a curriculum with greater attention to power reactor
issues, yielding graduates better suited to potential employers' needs.
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77
UNIVERSITY REACTORS
The number of university research reactors has declined significantly (NRC,
1988~. As discussed in Chapter 4, access to a university reactor is an
important element of both undergraduate and graduate nuclear engineering
education. Because of the expense of supporting these reactors, it is not
anticipated that every nuclear engineering department can have one. However,
there should be a sufficient number of such reactors, located so that all
nuclear engineering departments can gain access to one without undue costs.
THE ROLE OF INDUSTRY
The U.S. nuclear power industry, especially the utilities now operating the
commercial reactors, has a vested interest in ensuring a strong manpower pool
for the industry of the future. Although broad-based educational experience
is appropriate for nuclear engineering programs, some component closely
aligned with the commercial nuclear power industry is extremely important to
produce graduates with the requisite training and education. Through INPO the
nuclear power industry has established both graduate fellowship programs
(totalling $380,000 per year) and undergraduate scholarship programs
(totalling $510,000 per year) in nuclear engineering and health physics (INPO,
1989).
However, companies within the nuclear power industry, both utilities and
suppliers, should be encouraged to reexamine and increase their involvement
with nuclear engineering programs. Such involvement may be significant for
their success in the future competition for graduate students. In addition to
strengthening scholarship and fellowship programs, industrial organizations
should be more visible on campuses, and faculty and students should
participate in on-site industrial programs. Industry has interacted with
nuclear engineering programs in several effective ways:
1. Cooperative education programs, in which students alternate between
paid assignments in industry and full-time education. This arrangement
affords the student first-hand experience in applied nuclear engineering in
industry, and it affords the employing industry in-depth experience with a
potential professional employee. Industry has often found that after
graduation such students are among the best of new hires.
2. Summer employment of undergraduate sophomores and juniors.
3. Adjunct professors provided by industrial organizations from among
their most experienced and capable personnel to add diversity to faculty and
provide students with first-hand exposure to an industry perspective.
4. Two-year nuclear engineering technology programs established
cooperatively by universities and industrial firms, to develop a continuing
OCR for page 78
78
supply of trained technicians. Pennsylvania State University, Duquesne Light,
and Westinghouse Electric Corporation have cooperated effectively for a number
of years in such an enterprise.
5. Advisory committees that promote closer relationships between
nuclear engineering departments and nearby industrial concerns.
6. Small sponsored research programs in nuclear engineering departments
to solve industry problems.
FINDINGS
In summary, then, a number of steps discussed here can strengthen nuclear
engineering education; some are enumerated as recommendations in Chapter 7.
Findings regarding nuclear education for future needs, based on discussion in
this and previous chapters are as follows:
o Bachelor of science graduates need strong skills in areas relating to
nuclear power reactors because they are very likely to be employed in the
nuclear power industry. This is also true, though less so, of master of
science graduates.
0 Nuclear engineering curricula are properly focused on the
fundamentals of the discipline but need modest broadening to respond to the
following trends: the growing use of integrated systems approaches to
evaluate reactor safety and risks, increased interest and concern about the
biological effects of radiation, greater emphasis on radioactive waste
management and related environmental remediation technologies, and the widely
shared opinion of employers that graduates need improved oral and written
communications skills (a concern common to all engineering disciplines and
especially a problem given the many foreign students).
O Over the past 10 to 15 years, there has been a substantial decline in
research related to power reactors. There has been some increase in research
on fusion, space power applications, medical applications and waste
management. Thus, although inadequate to the research support levels needed
by the discipline, a broader program relevant to the applications of no Far
forces and processes has emerged.
o There is a significant and growing mismatch between the research
interests of the faculty and the subject matter of the undergraduate
curricula.
0 The average age of U.S. nuclear engineering faculty is about 10 years
greater than for all engineering faculty, and only 18 percent of the faculty
qualified to teach nuclear engineering have less than five years of teaching
experience. Failure to introduce young faculty will necessarily limit
research development in many institutions and promises serious interruptions
in future program continuity.
. .
Representative terms from entire chapter:
nuclear engineers
