Current and Past SNRSI Scholars

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Ong Kay Chen Theodore


Matriculation Year: 2018
University of California, Berkeley
PhD, Nuclear Engineering

Hello all, my name is Theodore and I first started my journey with SNRSI in 2018. I completed my degree in Chemical Engineering with NTU under the A*Star Undergraduate Scholarship from 2014-2018, and am now pursuing my PhD in Nuclear Engineering in the Thermal Hydraulics Lab with Professor Per Peterson in the University of California, Berkeley.

I am currently working on the Fluoride Salt Cooled High Temperature Reactor (FHR), which is a type of molten salt reactor (MSR). This is because MSRs have the potential to make Fukushima and Chernobyl a thing of the past. Specifically I work on incorporating simulated reactor feedback into integral effects tests (IETs). In other words, I'm trying to make scale models of nuclear reactors behave like actual nuclear reactors via computer programming.

So far, I have attempted to use Open Source Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models such as OpenFOAM and monte carlo codes to try and simulate a nuclear reactor in detail. I attempted to use frequency response to perturb the system to learn how it behaves and obtain model parameters from it. Using those model parameters, I then attempt to incorporate them into IETs to simulate reactor feedback in real time.

Doing extensive simulation has led me into the world of linux, which is now my favourite operating system (i personally love using Manjaro, which is an Archlinux based distro). Along the way I have also learnt to use various coding languages like bash/zsh, python, and C++.

Besides work and programming, I love Sci-Fi movies and games, and i also enjoy playing the guitar and bass.