Jeongwon Seo and Sam Queralt won "Best Paper in Operations and Power" for their writing and presentation of "Efficiency Enhancement of Control Rod Worth Calibration in TRIGA Mk-II Reactor using Rod Swap Technique" at the ANS Student Conference in April. While current control rod calibration methods struggle to balance accuracy with efficiency, Rod Swap enables improvements in both. These new findings could be implemented at the university's own TRIGA reactor on the J. J. Pickle Research Campus. Until they are, this paper offers a new perspective on control rod worth calibration and invites further research in to improving the baseline operations of nuclear reactors.
More information can be found about control rod worth here: https://nuclear-twins.tacc.utexas.edu/rod_calibration
