Nuclear engineering Facts for Kids

This picture shows a nuclear weapon test called Romeo at Bikini Atoll. Nuclear engineers work with powerful things like this, but also with peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

Nuclear engineering is a special type of engineering. It's all about understanding and using the power hidden inside tiny parts of atoms, called atomic nuclei. This field uses ideas from nuclear physics to create and manage systems that deal with nuclear energy.

Nuclear engineers work with things like nuclear reactors, which are used to make electricity in nuclear power plants. They also deal with nuclear weapons, though much of their work focuses on peaceful uses. This field also covers nuclear fusion (another way to get energy from atoms), using radiation for medicine, keeping people safe from radiation, and managing nuclear fuel and radioactive waste. They also study how radioactivity affects our environment.

What Do Nuclear Engineers Do?
See also

What Do Nuclear Engineers Do?

Nuclear engineers have many important jobs. In the United States, about 18% of electricity comes from nuclear power plants. Many nuclear engineers work in this industry, either directly or for special national laboratories.

It's expected that more nuclear engineers will be needed in the future. This is because older engineers are retiring, and there's a need to keep power plants safe and updated. Also, nuclear medicine is growing, creating more jobs in that area.

Nuclear powerplant
B-61 thermonuclear weapon

Nuclear Energy in Medicine

One very important area for nuclear engineers is medical physics, which is part of nuclear medicine. This field helps doctors diagnose and treat illnesses.

Some sub-fields include:

Nuclear medicine: Using radioactive materials to see inside the body or treat diseases.
Radiation therapy: Using radiation to treat cancer.
Health physics: Making sure people are safe from radiation.
Diagnostic imaging: Creating images of the inside of the body.

Nuclear engineers help design and improve amazing machines like x-ray machines, MRI scanners, and PET scanners. These tools help doctors find problems and plan treatments.

An X-Ray image of a male skull
A Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan of a human head
A PET scan taken with an ECAT Exact HR+PET scanner

Working with Nuclear Materials

Research into nuclear materials is a big part of nuclear engineering. It focuses on two main things:

Nuclear fuels: Engineers work to make nuclear fuels better. This helps nuclear reactors produce more energy efficiently.
Irradiation effects: They study how radiation changes materials. This helps them understand how reactor parts might change over time. They also look at how tiny changes can be made to metals using special tools like ion-beams or particle accelerators.

Uranium ore is the main raw material for nuclear fuel.
These are Nuclear fuel pellets, which are used in nuclear reactors.
This image shows a focused ion beam, a tool used to study materials.

Radiation Safety and Measurement

A key part of nuclear engineering is radiation protection, also called radiological protection. This is about keeping people and the environment safe from harmful radiation.

Nuclear engineers and scientists work to create better ways to measure and detect ionizing radiation. They use these improvements to make imaging technologies better. This includes designing new detectors, building them, and analyzing how they work. They also measure basic atomic and nuclear properties and develop new radiation imaging systems.