Nuclear Engineering

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Nuclear Engineering

MSc, 120 cr, 2 years

The world’s increasing demand for energy, together with global warming and fossil fuel depletion provides new opportunities for nuclear energy to play a role in the transition to sustainable energy system solutions. This creates a substantial need for engineers and scientists who can take part in developing the fourth generation of nuclear energy technology and take nuclear energy into a safer future. Besides energy, nuclear science and technology have applications in medicine, process industry, material physics and environmental monitoring.

Programme description

There is an heightened demand for highly trained nuclear engineers to research and develop the processes, instruments, and systems used in nuclear energy and radiation technology and to address questions such as how to model and predict reactor behaviour, the use of nuclear radiation as well as radiation protection, how to control and treat nuclear systems, and safety engineering.

As the face of nuclear technology changes, future challenges within the field include e.g developing the next generation of nuclear reactors and fuel, improving safety, optimizing processes to increase nuclear fuel efficiency and reduce nuclear waste, improve the processes for handling nuclear waste, create systems that minimize risks in the interaction between humans and technology and finding materials and technologies for future nuclear systems.

Besides applications related to energy, nuclear technology can be found in e.g the use of radioactive isotopes and radiation for medical diagnosis and treatment, in industrial measurement techniques, labelling of substances with radioactive isotopes in biosciences.

The nuclear master’s program at Chalmers is one of very few with a broad education, coupling different disciplines at Chalmers as well as industry. The compulsory courses in the program are designed to give the basic “must-have” knowledge in nuclear engineering, and a large number of elective advanced courses are available in many key subjects.

Career opportunities

The demand for expertise in nuclear engineering is already high, but it’s also increasing both from the industry and national authorities. This is due to retirement of employees and large investments aimed at increasing power output and modernising and extending the lifetime of existing reactor units. Graduates are well prepared to work in all sectors of the nuclear industry, both as nuclear engineers or in an R&D environment.

The Nuclear Engineering Programme is ideal for continued studies at Ph.D. level in nuclear-related subjects such as reactor physics, nuclear chemistry and fusion. A master’s degree in nuclear engineering can also be appropriate for Ph.D. studies in many different engineering disciplines, such as research related to non-destructive material testing, irradiation induced material damage and fluid dynamics.

Research connections

Chalmers performs extensive research in the nuclear field in close collaboration with the nuclear industry, for instance in development on new nuclear fuel, new multi-physics models for reactors and collaboration with the Swedish radiation authorities in assessing nuclear systems and calculations. We are connected to several companies within nuclear technology e.g. Vattenfall, EON, Ringhals, ÅF engineering, Scandpower, ES consult and Westinghouse, to name a few.

The companies are involved in our programme through e.g. company presentations, guest lectures and adjunct professors active at our faculty. Making it possible for you to work with real case projects, provided by the industry.

Detailed programme content in the Student portal, for current students

Entry requirements

General entry requirements
To be eligible an applicant must either be a holder of a Bachelor's degree in Science/Engineering/Architecture or be enrolled in his/her last year of studies leading to such a degree.

General entry requirements in detail

Specific entry requirements
Bachelor´s degree (or the equivalent) with a Major in Engineering Physics, Chemical Engineering, Chemical Engineering with Engineering Physics, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Engineering Mathematics or the equivalent.

Prerequisites: Mathematics 30 cr. (including in particular second order differential equations) and Physics corresponding to an introductory course at the B Sc level

English Language Proficiency
The most common and important scores that are accepted are

IELTS (academic training), 6.5 (with no part of the test below 5.5)
TOEFL (Internet based): 90 (with a minimum of 20 on the written part)

To read more about required minimum test results and other means of certifying fulfillment of the English language proficiency requirement, please visit:
English Language Proficiency

Citizenship
All applicants to the programme Nuclear Engineering must confirm their citizenship(s) by enclosing a copy of the relevant page(s) of their passport(s) stating their citizenship(s). Chalmers can not admit applicants with citizenship only of Iran due to Council Regulation (EC) No 423/2007 concerning restrictive measures against Iran.

Applicants with double citizenships of which one is of Iran and the other from another country, the other country´s citizenship has precedence in this respect. Chalmers can not admit applicants with citizenship only of the Democratic People´s Republic of Korea due to the Council Regulation (EC) No 329/2007 concerning restrictive measures against the Democratic People´s Republic of Korea. Applicants with double citizenships of which one is of Democratic People´s Republic of Korea and the other from another country, the other country´s citizenship has precedence in this respect.

Application

Degree: Master of Science (MSc)
Credits: 120
Duration: 2 years
Rate of study: 100%
Instructional time: Daytime
Language of instruction: English
Teaching form: On-campus
Tuition fee: 140 000 SEK/academic year
*EU/EEA Citizens are not required to pay fees.
Application Code: CTH-32009