PhD projects for October 2026 will be confirmed by the end of April 2026.
In the meantime, we invite candidates to send their CVs to drivers-dfa@imperial.ac.uk to formally register their interest.
Interested candidates should confirm in their e-mail which theme(s) they are interested in. We will contact candidates when the list of PhD projects is published in each theme.
You can learn more about the research topics we expect to be available below:
Reactor Physics
Reactor physics concerns the behaviour of the reactor core itself and the mechanisms by which energy is generated and controlled. Advances in technology are leading to innovations in fuel, core, shielding and radiation detector design, expanding the design space. Also, HPC, dedicated AI/ML microprocessors, and future quantum computing hardware architectures are revolutionising modelling and simulation in nuclear engineering. Projects will cover radiation transport (nuclear physics, neutron diffusion and transport, reactor kinetics and dynamics), reactor shielding and dosimetry, nuclear criticality safety, radiation detectors, and computational methods (deterministic methods, Monté Carlo methods, multiscale and multiphysics methods, high performance computing as well as associated industrial software).
Thermal Hydraulics
Thermal hydraulics is the mechanism by which energy produced in the reactor core is transferred to a coolant and subsequently used to generate useful power as electricity and heat. The effectiveness of these processes govern much of the performance and safety limits of a nuclear reactor. Through the use of high performance computing (HPC), AI/ML, surrogate models, uncertainty quantification (UQ), and high-fidelity experiments for model validation, there is the opportunity to develop significantly improved thermal-hydraulic design methods that would improve performance, reliability, safety and reduce costs of future nuclear power plants. Projects will cover multiphase and multicomponent computational fluid dynamics; experimental thermal hydraulics, scaling, flow diagnostics; subchannel and system thermal-hydraulic modelling, design-based and severe accident analysis and associated industrial software.
Through-life Structural Integrity
Structural integrity is the ability of the core and plant structures, components and materials to safely operate under expected thermal and inertial loading. Through-life structural integrity is a holistic approach that links the material properties and stresses in components arising from the manufacturing process to its operational performance, enabling accurate lifetime predictions and ensuring safety. Projects will cover integrated modelling and simulation (fluid-structure interaction and materials behaviour), advanced manufacturing including powder and additive approaches, sensors and structural health monitoring, digital twins for advanced lifetime assessments, and advanced experimental testing and analyses.