Nejdet Erkan MNucI
Tell us a little bit about your current role and what you do.
I'm working at the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) as a thermal hydraulic specialist, designing and planning to perform some experiments with the liquid metals that are used or planned to be used in future fusion reactors. I'm currently investigating the Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) phenomena because liquid metals are highly affected by strong magnetic fields.
What was your route into the nuclear industry?
I have always been in the nuclear industry! Since my undergraduate education, I have been fully focused on nuclear engineering, nuclear technologies and power plants. After that, all my career in academia was focused on the nuclear industry, most centrally on the Fukushima accident. I worked in Japan and I performed a lot of research about the accident there.
Why did you become a member of Nuclear Institute?
I searched about other societies when I came to the UK and I realised that the most relevant Institute or engineering society to my experience and education is the Nuclear Institute.
Some of my colleagues suggested I should become a member of other societies like the IMechE and others, but my personal view is that the Nuclear Institute, its activities and other members are more relevant to my work and my professional career.
What do you see as the benefits of professional membership or chartership?
I was previously a member of the Japanese Atomic Energy Society and the Mechanical Engineering Society when I was in Japan. With this, I succeeded in building a network and met many people during the annual meetings there, which helped with project collaboration. I'm now hoping to be able to build a similarly strong network in the UK nuclear field with the Nuclear Institute.
In terms of your career, what is next for you?
I am keen to have more senior and leading positions, to change some things and to produce some good things in nuclear fusion or fission.
As I see it, I have attended several conferences in the UK, especially in thermal hydraulics. Here I have seen that there is a lack of expertise and perhaps a lack of young generation interest in Thermal-Hydraulics of Nuclear Accidents and Nuclear Safety in the UK.
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