Nagra

Company

Nagra, the National Cooperative for the Disposal of Radioactive Waste, pursues the Swiss project of the century: a deep geological repository for Switzerland. We are driven to solve the problem of radioactive waste now rather than passing the burden on to future generations. Our team of around 130 employees comprises specialists from the field of natural sciences such as geology, physics and nuclear engineering, chemistry, biology, and construction engineering.

In the Inventory and Logistics unit, we inventory and characterise the radioactive waste and make reliable predictions, thus ensuring that a deep geological repository will have enough space for all types of radioactive waste. Furthermore, we provide support to NPPs by means of e.g. carrying out shielding calculations and contributing to packaging and decommissioning planning.

Your responsibilities

Several internship projects are available at Nagra, comprising potential tasks such as:

• MCNP calculations and optimisations: Working with new or existing MCNP models to perform geometry extension, variance reduction and general efficiency optimisation, followed by analysis and discussion of the results, for the overarching goal of radiological characterisation, segmentation and packaging strategies or dose rate distributions for NPP operation and decommissioning as well as any nuclear waste related tasks.
• Criticality calculations:

  • setting up computational models for various configurations of the final disposal canister
    (i.e., taking into account different fuel assembly types, materials, etc.)

  • calculating the neutron multiplication factor, keff, for different canister configurations using Monte Carlo code systems like SCALE, MCNP, etc.

  • studying and evaluating different sources of uncertainty in criticality calculations
• Disposal Canister Packaging Optimisation: Working with logistical optimisation algorithms (in-house developed SIMAN program) to improve the loading patterns of the spent nuclear fuel disposal canisters.

Your profile

• A structured approach to solving tasks with critical thinking
• Motivation, strong interest for the nuclear engineering tasks at hand and willingness to learn
• Good scientific writing skills (in English, German is considered a plus)
• Programming skills (e.g. Python, Matlab, etc.) are considered a plus

We offer

Through our ongoing projects, at the interface between industry and fundamental research, we provide the unique opportunity to explore the most fascinating aspects of both worlds. You will be working along experts on key scientific and technical topics related to the final disposal of radioactive waste, in the context of real-life applications. You will also have the opportunity to train and/or gain additional experience with nuclear code packages such as SCALE or MCNP, etc.

Contingent upon availability and the outcome of the internship project, a Msc. thesis topic could be proposed in continuation of the internship.