F-BRIDGE Project

Department of Earth Sciences
University of Cambridge
European Commission Framework 7 Research Studentship

The prevention of radioactive contamination of the biosphere by the products of nuclear fission is a major concern for the nuclear industry and governments holding inventories of surplus or waste nuclear materials. An approach may be taken where the retention of fission products and actinides over the long term (repository lifetimes) is engineered into the nuclear fuel design. Silicon carbide coated nuclear fuels are one of these novel fuels intended for Generation IV nuclear reactors. The project involves a detailed assessment of the radiation stability of the fuel coatings, primarily through the application of novel nuclear magnetic resonance methods1, but also using X-ray absorption spectroscopy, mechanical analysis and molecular dynamics modelling. The student will be expected to interact extensively with European partners in the Euratom F-Bridge project at the Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland), EC JRC Institute for Transuranium Elements, Karlsruhe (Germany), CNRS Orléans (France), CEA Cadarache (France), NRG Petten (Netherlands).

Further information may be obtained form Dr Ian Farnan ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ).
Closing date (July 30th 2008)