Alumni

During his time in the Thermal-Hydraulics Laboratory, Nicolas was involved in modeling and experimental validation for passive safety systems used in FHRs. In particular, he was responsible for design, fabrication and startup testing in the Compact Integral Effects Test (CIET) facility, which reproduces key fluid mechanics and heat transfer phenomena in FHRs at 50% scale, reduced fluid temperature and heating power under 2% of prototypical values. He also studied reliability of the Direct Reactor Auxiliary Cooling System (DRACS) used for passive decay heat removal in FHRs, by developing a methodology that uses best-estimate codes validated with experimental data from CIET.

Prior to attending UC Berkeley, Nicolas received a BS and a MS in Mechanical Engineering and Physics applied to energy at Ecole Polytechnique in France. During his PhD, Nicolas worked at the Electric Power Research Institute on risk aggregation methods applied to safety analysis of nuclear power plants,

Publications

1. Zweibaum, “Experimental Validation of Passive Safety System Models: Application to Design and Optimization of Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactors,” PhD Dissertation, Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of California, Berkeley (2015).
2. Zweibaum, J. E. Bickel, Z. Guo, J. C. Kendrick, and P. F. Peterson, “Design, Fabrication and Startup Testing in the Compact Integral Effects Test Facility in Support of Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactor Technology,” Proc. NURETH-16, Chicago, Illinois, August 30-September 4, 2015, American Nuclear Society (2015).
3. Zweibaum, Z. Guo, L. R. Huddar, and P. F. Peterson, “Validation of Best Estimate Models for Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactors Using Data from the Compact Integral Effects Test (CIET 1.0) Facility,” Proc. NURETH-16, Chicago, Illinois, August 30-September 4, 2015, American Nuclear Society (2015).
4. Zweibaum et al., “Role and Status of Scaled Experiments in the Development of Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactors,” Proc. Int. Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP ’15), Nice, France, May 3-6, 2015, American Nuclear Society (2015).
5. Zweibaum, C. Andreades, S. Hong, and P. F. Peterson, “Life Cycle Assessment of the Mark 1 Pebble-Bed, Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactor,” Proc. Int. Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP ’15), Nice, France, May 3-6, 2015, American Nuclear Society (2015).
6. Zweibaum, J. E. Bickel, and P. F. Peterson, “Design, Fabrication and Startup Testing in the Compact Integral Effects Test (CIET 1.0) Facility in Support of Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactor Technology,” Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, UCBTH-14-009 (2014).
7. Zweibaum et al., “Phenomenology, Methods and Experimental Program for Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactors (FHRs),” Prog. Nucl. Energ., 77, 390 (2014).
8. Zweibaum, R. O. Scarlat, and P. F. Peterson, “Design of a Compact Integral Effects Test Facility for Fluoride-Salt- Cooled, High-Temperature Reactors,” T. Am. Nucl. Soc., <strong>109</strong>, 1, 1588 (2013).
9. T. Cisneros, N. Zweibaum et al., “Fluoride-Salt-Cooled, High-Temperature Reactor (FHR) Methods and Experiments Program White Paper,” Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, UCBTH-12-002 (2013).
10. Zweibaum, R. O. Scarlat and P. F. Peterson, “Verification and Validation of a Single-Phase Natural Circulation Loop Model in RELAP5-3D,” Proc. IRUG 2013 Meeting, Idaho Falls, ID, September 12-13, 2013, International RELAP5 Users Group (2013).
11. T. Cisneros, N. Zweibaum, C. Di Sanzo, J. Cohen, and E. Greenspan, “Feasibility of Once Through Subcritical Cores Driven by an Accelerator Spallation Neutron Source,” Fusion Sci. Technol., 61, 1T, 431 (2012).
12. Zweibaum and P. F. Peterson, “Validation, through Scaled Experiments, of RELAP5-3D Models of Porous Media Flow, and their Applicability to the Development of the Pebble-Bed Advanced High Temperature Reactor (PB-AHTR),” MS Report, Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of California, Berkeley (2011).

Nicolas enjoys traveling, reading and going to concerts in his spare time. He is particularly interested in global energy matters and served as the Nuclear Engineering Department’s liaison to the Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative between 2011 and 2012.

Personal Link

Grant performed research in the X-ray Pebble Recirculation Experiment (XPREX) facility. His research involved the design and fabrication of experiments, the instrumentation and controls for the facility, and the creation of the x-ray tomography software. Grant graduated with a B.S. in Nuclear and Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley in the Spring of 2014. He also graduated with a Masters in Science in Nuclear Engineering from UC Berkeley in the Spring of 2015, with a thesis titled “Control Blade Insertion Dynamics in Pebble-Bed Fluoride-Salt-Cooled High-Temperature Reactors”.

Grant has taken a job at NuScale power in the PRA group, which he will start in Fall of 2015.

Outside of nuclear engineering, Grant enjoys skiing, snowboarding, hiking, rock-climbing, reading, and creative design-thinking. He was president of the College Ski and Snowboard Club (CSSC), and also a founding member/president of the Design Engineering Collaborative (DEC) at UC Berkeley.