Nuclear Engineer

SCK CEN, as a major centre of excellence of Heavy Liquid Metal (HLM) technology, has the intention to develop and construct a lead cooled fast Technology Demonstrator in support to lead cooled fast SMR’s (SMR-LFR) in collaboration with an international consortium.

The well-established MYRRHA reactor programme with its associated R&D, pre-licensing experience and design achievements supports the development of the SMR working with Lead as coolant and therefore accelerates the deployment of lead fast reactors of the SMR type.

The Nuclear Technology Engineering (NTE) team is dedicated to the SMR-LFR and MYRRHA-Reactor projects and is largely responsible for the preparation of the conceptual design of all systems.

SCK CEN wants to engage a Nuclear Engineer within the NTE group, who is responsible for:

• designing and constructing the nuclear fuel assembly for the SMR-LFR installation
• defining the qualification programme for the nuclear fuel of the reactor in dedicated experiments
• designing dedicated experiments for fuel qualification
• designing and selecting the core instrumentation
• taking ownership of thermal-hydraulic and mechanical codes for the fuel system
• defining the technical, operational and safety requirements for the fuel assemblies
• providing assistance to specific technical aspects of the fuel assembly, including the manufacturing of the fuel assembly
• leading the design and licensing process of the fuel assembly, in close cooperation with the fuel vendor and licensing authority
• managing external contractors for the fuel fabrication process
• draw-up necessary design documents
• maintain and use the existing fuel codes and perform the necessary analyses; update and qualify the existing fuel codes

Make a difference as Nuclear Engineer:

• getting familiar with the current primary system and SCK CEN company and colleagues;
• gathering and drawing up the requirements for the fuel assemblies (functional and technical requirements) interfacing with the primary systems design bases;
• interface with the Fuel Materials Group to implement MOX fabrication constraints in the design process;
• interfacing with the Nuclear Physics and Safety teams to implement the safety approach;
• interfacing with the nuclear waste team to determine the waste workflows;
• supplying the necessary information to engineering offices and feedback on the technical designs to the other team members;
• preparing the necessary reports for the project to pass the various stage-gates;
• taking the necessary design decisions in consultation with the NTE and other teams.

To join this frontier, you'll need