Annual Report

People
The CNE possesses an impressive breadth and depth of nuclear
expertise which the academic profiles in this section abundantly
demonstrate.
Staff
Dr Mike Bluck IMechE, IET
Senior Lecturer
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Deputy Director RR NUTC
Mike Bluck obtained his BSc
(Hons.) in Mathematics (mathematical
physics) from the University
of Kent. At Imperial College London, Mike
completed a PhD Thesis on: ‘Integral equation
methods for transient wave propagation’ with
applications to acoustic scattering, RCS computation
and antenna design before becoming
involved in nuclear engineering. He is a Senior
Lecturer in the Nuclear Engineering group of the
Mechanical Engineering Department, and also
the Deputy Director of the Rolls-Royce Nuclear
University Technology Centre. His interests
cover nuclear thermal hydraulics, neutronics
and associated computational methods. He
is an investigator on current grants totalling
over £2M, including Computational Modelling
for Advanced Nuclear Power Plants, collaborations
with India (BARC) on thermal hydraulics,
development of advanced radiation transport
schemes (Rolls-Royce) and applications of CFD
to nuclear (Rolls-Royce). He has ~40 publications,
and has supervised 7 students to PhD
completion and currently supervises or co-supervises
14 EngD and PhD students.
Prof Julian Bommer
Senior Research Investigator
Civil and Environmental Engineering
The core of Julian’s research
is related to the characterisation
and production of strong
ground-motion, including establishing the influence
of different ground-motion parameters
on structural response and damage. The second
major area is seismic hazard assessment,
such as the identification, interpretation and
treatment of uncertainties, and the practice of
probabilistic seismic hazard analysis.
Julian is engaged in seismic hazard projects
around the world, primarily for nuclear applications
but also related to large dams, bridges,
and other major infrastructure projects, including
the Panama Canal expansion.
Dr Ben Britton
Lecturer
Department of Materials
Director of the MSc in Advanced Nuclear
Engineering
Ben was recently appointed as
a Lecturer in Materials and is
also holder of a Royal Academy of Engineering
Research fellowship studying “better materials
for safer reactors”. His research group focus
on understanding the behaviour of high valuehigh
risk materials. For nuclear applications,
Centre for Nuclear Engineering Annual Report 2014-2016 10