New Research Chair will tackle the structural integrity of nuclear power stations

Professor Chris Pearce, Professor of Computational Mechanics at the University of Glasgow, has been appointed to the university's new Royal Academy of Engineering / EDF Energy Research Chair in Computational Mechanics for Nuclear Power Engineering. The five-year post will be used to develop new predictive modelling techniques for structural integrity assessment in civil nuclear power stations. Professor Pearce specialises in computational analysis of materials and structures, applied to problems ranging from safety critical structures to biomechanics. Over the last six years, he and his group have forged a successful collaboration with EDF Energy, developing a unique predictive modelling capability for crack propagation in nuclear graphite. This represents a key component in EDF Energy's life extension programme for its fleet of nuclear power plants. This award will enable him to extend this work to the structural integrity of other key components of the UK's ageing nuclear power plants and to tackle new challenges in the next generation of reactors. Professor Pearce comments: "I'm honoured and delighted to receive this prestigious award and look forward to working with EDF Energy and the Royal Academy of Engineering to tackle some of the key challenges in structural integrity assessment for civil nuclear power.