Rep. Greg Pence, a member of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee (second from right), toured Purdue University Reactor Number One, Indiana's first and only nuclear reactor, alongside Purdue engineering faculty and research leaders in August 2023. (Purdue University photo/Kelsey Lefever)
Purdue University research reactor serves as test bed for optimizing performance of small modular reactors
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — To expand the availability of electricity generated from nuclear power, several countries have started developing designs for small modular reactors (SMRs), which could take less time and money to construct compared to existing reactors.
Toward this effort, a study conducted at Purdue University has made progress in enabling artificial intelligence to improve monitoring and control of SMRs, possibly offering a way to further cut costs of their operation and maintenance so that they can be more economically viable.
The study, published in Nature's Scientific Reports, showed how a machine learning algorithm could rapidly learn about the physics behind a measurement of how steadily a reactor is producing power, and predict changes in this indicator over time with 99% accuracy.
