
Carl R. Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering
Associate Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering
Email: jacopo@mit.edu
Phone: 617-253-7316
Fax: 617-258-8863
MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering
77 Massachusetts Avenue, 24-206
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
PhD, Nuclear Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2000.
B.S., Nuclear Engineering, Polytechnic of Milan, 1996.
Teaching: Engineering of Nuclear Reactors (22.312), Thermal Hydraulics in Power Technology (22.313J), Thermal-Fluids Engineering II (2.006); MIT-INPO Reactor Technology Course for Utility Executives (Co-Director)
Multi-phase flow and heat transfer; advanced reactor design; reactor thermal-hydraulic, neutronic and structural analysis.
Investigation of Nanofluids for Nuclear Applications
My research efforts have been directed primarily to the investigation of fundamental transport phenomena in colloidal suspensions of nanoparticles (known as nanofluids) with the ultimate goal of exploring their applications in nuclear systems, such as fission reactors, accelerator targets and fusion reactors. The research program is in collaboration with the MIT Nuclear Reactor Laboratory, and sponsored by AREVA, the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), the Department of Energy and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI).
The program emphasis is on elucidation of the mechanisms of mass, momentum and heat transfer enhancement that has been observed experimentally. This entails (i) measurements and theoretical predictions of the thermophysical properties (thermal conductivity and viscosity above all) and single-phase convective heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop, (ii) evaluation of the colloidal stability of the nanoparticles under irradiation and in chemistries representative of the reactor environment, and (iii) measurements of the Critical Heat Flux (CHF) in both pool and flow boiling. This last area has been the source of very exciting results lately. Our experiments indicate that significant CHF enhancement is possible with nanofluids at modest concentrations (Fig. 1) and this enhancement was proven to occur for the first time also in a flow system.
Since the performance of all water-cooled nuclear systems is CHF limited, the use of nanofluids could afford considerable economic and safety gains. The work performed in our lab has also cast considerable light on the mechanism of CHF enhancement in nanofluids. Briefly, buildup of a porous layer of nanoparticles on the heater surface was observed during nucleate boiling, and it was shown that this layer significantly improves the surface wettability, which in turn increases greatly the CHF.
Among the possible nuclear applications of nanofluids that we have been exploring one has proven particularly promising so far, i.e., mitigation of postulated severe accidents during which the core melts and relocates to the bottom of the reactor vessel. In such accidents it is desirable to retain the molten fuel within the vessel by removing the decay heat through the vessel wall. This process is limited by the occurrence of CHF on the vessel outer surface. Our analysis indicates that using a nanofluid vs water as the coolant can improve the in-vessel retention capabilities of nuclear reactors by as much as 30-40%.