What is Nuclear Engineering?

As a precision engineering company, we often get asked what is nuclear engineering and design, and what does it involve?

Many people will automatically think of power plants when they hear the word nuclear. However, nuclear engineering is much more than that.

Our precision engineers create F4N (Fit 4 Nuclear) equipment for Nuclear Engineers. F4N allows us to compare standards required for the industry. Nuclear Engineers can range from working for medical projects to the plasma sciences and in each field the application of nuclear energy varies.

Nuclear Manufacturing

Within all forms of nuclear engineering, there will be multiple involvements of design, manufacturing, operation and construction. These systems and processes are complex which is why testing is needed. It includes the production, control and detection of radiation which covers particle accelerators and reactors for power plants. In fact beyond the designing and development, many engineers work within the maintenance or testing side of nuclear engineering, including monitoring and protecting people from the harms of radiation.

Nuclear engineering is much more than just providing nuclear power for electrical production. The technology we use affects everyday lives in different ways including food supplies and safety measurements.

Medical
• Nuclear engineering is used in hospitals in diagnostic imagery machines, medicines and treatments. Radiation Therapy kills cancers cells helping people become cancer free and leaves the healthy tissue unharmed. Radiation can create images inside both humans and animals, this is in the form of X-Rays and MRI scans.

Radiation Detection
• Detection radiation is highly important for safety. We can detect radiation within boxes and trucks with simple detections. Geologists also use radiation detection to determine the age of rocks with the use of carbon dating.

Nuclear Materials
• Nuclear materials can be found in many different places and used in different manufacturing processes such as computer chip manufacturing and used in creating space elevators.

Sterilisation
• Many hospitals will use gamma radiation to sterilise medical equipment such as clothing and syringes, mainly the type of equipment that will get damaged in high heat sterilisation.

Environmental Tracers
• Nuclear techniques are applied to detect and analysing pollutants such as smog and sulphur dioxide contamination in the atmosphere.

For more information on our nuclear engineering services get in touch with our team and if you would like to work for MNB Precision check out our careers page, or alternatively go to our contact page.