The Department of Energy's Nuclear Energy Enabling Technology program has awarded researchers at the University of Pittsburgh a $987,000 grant to work with Corning Inc. and Westinghouse Electric to develop radiation-resistant fiber optic sensor networks to improve safety at nuclear power plants.
Electrical engineering associate professor Kevin Chen, the lead investigator in the project, pointed to the lack of information available at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi facility after it was evacuated in the wake of an 8.9-magnitude earthquake and the follow-up tsunami that breached the plant's safety wall in March of 2011.
Chen said the “information blackout prevented the implementation of proper control mechanisms, which then triggered a disastrous chain of events.”
He said the challenge was to build a new system that included “radiation robust sensors” that could be incorporated into new plant designs and retrofitted into existing power plants.