Senior Core Design Engineer

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory•Chattanooga, OH

5d•Hybrid

About The Position

The National Security Directorate (NSD) drives science-based, mission-focused solutions to take on complex, real-world threats to our nation and the world. The Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Technologies Division, within the National Security Directorate, works across fundamental science, research and development, and operations to counter emerging national security threats. We focus on discovering signatures and understanding threats by creating materials, methods, and technologies to detect and analyze them. Our researchers deliver the solutions necessary for addressing complex mission challenges, such as explosives detection, biological threat detection, chemical and nuclear forensics, and special nuclear materials. The Nuclear Engineering Group at PNNL is seeking a nuclear engineer who possesses an understanding of nuclear power plant core design and operations. This position provides expertise to the PNNL Tritium Technology Program (TTP) team and will work directly with the project collaborative partner organization, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) Fuel Engineering Department. The PNNL Tritium Technology Program provides critical technical leadership for the U.S. national security infrastructure. Established to support the National Nuclear Security Administration, the program acts as the core design authority for producing and managing tritium for national security. The program serves as the design authority for Tritium-Producing Burnable Absorber Rods (TPBARs) working closely with their partner, TVA, to safely and reliably irradiate TPBARs in Watts Bar Nuclear (WBN) Unit 1 and Unit 2 plants. The TVA PWR Fuel Engineering department directly supports the reactor core design and reload licensing analysis needs for TVA's PWR fleet, which includes Sequoyah and WBN Unit 1 and Unit 2 plants. The department provides oversight of fuel vendor neutronics, core monitoring, operations data, and safety analysis. It also supports TVA’s mission of maintaining low rates to promote economic development in the Valley by minimizing fuel costs through optimized fuel management. In addition, the department supports Governance Oversight Execution and Support (GOES) for the PWR fleet Reactor Engineering organizations and performs in-house calculations for refueling outages, including spent fuel pool criticality and decay heat analyses.

Requirements

BS/BA and 7+ years of relevant experience -OR- MS/MA and 5+ years of relevant experience -OR- PhD with 3+ years of relevant experience
Experience in a field directly relevant to PWR core design.
Ability to work with limited information to draw technically defensible conclusions that would support objectives of individual projects.
Professional experience or knowledge of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or National Nuclear Security Administration practices and operations.
Professional and educational experience applying qualitative and quantitative analytic techniques to nuclear fuel cycle and nuclear operation problems.
U.S. Citizenship
Ability to obtain and maintain a federal security clearance.
Background Investigation: Applicants selected will be subject to a Federal background investigation and must meet eligibility requirements for access to classified matter in accordance with 10 CFR 710, Appendix B.
Drug Testing: All Security Clearance positions are Testing Designated Positions, which means that the applicant selected for hire is subject to pre-employment drug testing, and post-employment random drug testing.
Applicants must be able to demonstrate non-use of illegal drugs, including marijuana, for the 12 consecutive months preceding completion of the requisite Questionnaire for National Security Positions (QNSP).
Mandatory Requirements: The Department of Energy (DOE) prohibits DOE employees and contractors from having any affiliation with the foreign government of a country DOE has identified as a “country of risk” without explicit approval by DOE and Battelle.

Nice To Haves

PhD degree plus 5 years of related work or educational experience.
Master’s degree plus 7 years of related work or educational experience.
Bachelor’s degree plus 10 years of related work or educational experience.
Other experience in nuclear analysis is highly desirable.

Responsibilities

Involved in developing nuclear fuel and core designs, performing oversight of vendor fuel design safety limits to support the fuel reload analyses and plant operations.
Core design development.
Long term planning and budget evaluations for core designs.
Evaluating program goals and changes such as loading changes and increasing tritium production.
Target design inputs confirmation.
Lead Use Assemblies evaluation including 50.59 and any technical reviews.
Design initialization meeting support.
Nuclear operations data review for long term TPBAR decay.
TracWorks updates for tritium consolidation campaigns.
Fuel Assembly Transfer Form development for tritium consolidation campaigns.
Tritium consolidation campaign oversight (onsite, refuel floor).
Development of corrective action plans.
Overseeing/benchmarking code predictive capabilities.
Reviewing and evaluating revised TPBAR cross sections and performing calculations to demonstrate that decay heat for tritium cores is bounded.
Contribute to projects and building a professional reputation for technical expertise, while completing recurring assignments and exercising limited judgement on work details.
Lead specific tasks of the project to meet scope, schedule, and budget and coordinate closely with Project Managers.
Build a network within the Technical Team and Group, begin extending this network into the National Security Directorate.
Provide strong technical judgement by providing solutions to an assortment of problems using conventional methods where causal relationships are progressively difficult to establish.
Contribute to the development of new capabilities and proposals within the Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Technologies Division.
Work with non-sensitive, sensitive, and classified information as appropriate for individual projects and should demonstrate an ability to manage sensitive business situations and influence positive outcomes.
Serve as a technical mentor to junior staff.