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Conference Spotlight
2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
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August 2026
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LLNL, Ampera partner to develop thorium-based TRISO fuel
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has formed a strategic partnership with Ampera to develop the company’s nuclear fuel concept through a project named THUNDER, for Thorium Unimodal Droplet Ejection for Reactors.
The focus of THUNDER is fabricating TRISO made with kernels of thorium rather than the usual uranium. LLNL and Ampera will evaluate and optimize liquid metal–jetting technology to produce highly uniform, spherical kernels of thorium-232 for later processing into TRISO fuel.
Workshop
Thursday, April 4, 2024|1:00–4:00PM EDT|Eric J. Barron Innovation Hub Room 603
Session Organizer:
Luiz Aldeia Machado (Penn State University)
Want to learn about Monte Carlo methods and how to use a powerful, open-source software? Join our PSU students and Dr. April Novak (ANL/UIUC) for a workshop that will take attendees step-by-step through how to use/work with the OpenMC software. By the end of the workshop, all attendees should be able to: understand OpenMC’s capabilities, understand what the Monte Carlo method is, and model a pin cell and BWR example. All attendees are expected to bring their personal computers. No prior experience with using the software is required!
Speaker
April Novak
Dr. April Novak is an Assistant Professor of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Before joining the faculty at UIUC, she was a Maria Goeppert-Mayer Fellow at Argonne National Laboratory. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 2020. Her research focuses on multiphysics methods and applications, multiscale thermal hydraulics, Monte Carlo transport methods, reactor design and analysis, and high-performance computing.
