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Idaho National Laboratory University/College Internships-NUCLEAR FUELS AND MATERIALS INTERNSHIPS

The Opportunity:

Internships at Idaho National Laboratory  

Idaho National Laboratory (INL) hosts over 300 undergraduate and graduate students each year to support INL's mission.  Opportunities for interns at INL range from nuclear engineering to cybersecurity and include non-scientific positions in various operations and business disciplines.

Join INL's team and find your exceptional educational experience in a real-world work environment.  INL offers a unique opportunity to learn, collaborate, innovate and conduct research with top researchers and professionals.

The Deliverables:

Interns will spend the first week of their assignment working with their mentor to outline their work scope and to secure resources for a successful internship.  For the next several weeks, the mentor will provide considerable program assistance and guidance to the intern.  In addition to regular activities, interns are invited to attend weekly seminars, tours and community events designed with career development in mind.  Completion of a final project is highly recommended and can be completed through a variety of mediums - a traditional poster, electronic presentation or video.

The Process:

Through this single application, you are considered for all internship projects related to Nuclear Fuels and Materials. Simply complete the application questions which will help us identify what knowledge and experience you already have that may be related to the preferred qualifications for each individual internship project. It is common for applicants to receive consideration for multiple projects at varying times throughout the process. Mentors will make direct contact with applicants who meet their project qualifications to share the specific details of the project. On average, INL plans for approximately 300 internships each year.  Most internships provide flexibility with start and end dates to account for varying university term schedules.  We encourage early applications to increase the number of opportunities available to you.

The Projects:

~The world's premier nuclear test reactor, the Advanced Test Reactor.

~Analytical Laboratories with hot cells, gloveboxes, chemistry lab, 5-ton bridge crane, mass spectrometers, post irradiation characterization, radiation measurements lab and radioisotope characterization.

~The NRAD Neutron RADiography reactor.

~The Fuels and Applied Science Building with a Cobalt-60 gamma irradiator, molten salt electrorefiner, inert atmosphere gloveboxes, thermal characterization instruments, fabrication equipment, ceramic powder processing equipment and sintering furnaces.

~The Irradiated Materials Characterization Laboratory provides heavily shielded state-of-the-art electron beam characterization capabilities for post-irradiation examination of fuels and materials

~The Space and Security Power Systems Facility Radioisotope Power Systems are assembled and qualified to power equipment for deep space missions.

~The nation's premier hot cell facility, the Hot Fuel Examination Facility, where irradiated fuels and materials are examined using a variety of techniques to assess performance in reactor.

~The Fuel Conditioning Facility is used for treatment of sodium-bonded metal fuel and pyroprocessing.

~The Experimental Fuels Facility focused on development of nuclear fuels and fabrication methods.

~The Transient Test Reactor creates short term bursts of neutrons to simulate reactor accident scenarios and develop safer nuclear fuels.

~The Matched Index of Refraction facility provides experimental measurements for assessment and validation of computational fluid dynamics codes.

~The High Temperature Test Lab creates specialized sensors that are used inside of test reactors to monitor the in-core performance of nuclear fuels and materials experiments.

~The Safety and Tritium applied Research Facility is used for fusion research, hydrogen fuel, activated structural materials, beryllium, lithium, lead and fluoride salt experiments.

--Analyze and identify microstructural features of irradiated TRISO fuel kernels to determine the effect of irradiation level on the microstructure and fission product distribution. 

--Development of LabView software and experimental setup for the thermal conductivity measurements using 3-omega method.

--Image analysis and reconstruction for the evaluation of nuclear fuel performance. Source images include high-resolution optical micrographs and digitized x-ray and neutron radiographs. Quantitative analysis of these images was performed using MATLAB tools developed for this application.

--Development of a database of microstructural and physical properties of selected uranium based nuclear fuel materials. Student may assist with diffusional and or chemical interactive studies followed by microstructural evaluation.

--Design a miniature constant load testing rig that can be inserted in a high pressure high temperature autoclave to test irradiated specimens.

The development sample preparation techniques to analyze cracking for irradiated metallic test specimens. 

--Examination and analysis of nuclear fuels and materials using electron microscopy techniques that include SEM, TEM, FIB, and potentially APT.

--Development of a camera-based digital neutron radiography system for examination of highly radioactive objects.

--Designing and demonstrating the use of digital image correlation for measuring strain in mechanical testing from a large distance through a thick shield window.

--Development and testing of a next-generation system for non-destructive examination of irradiated fuels.