The Ministry of Science and Higher Education has announced a list of recipients of the Minister's scholarship for outstanding young scientists. Among those awarded is Tomasz Kwiatkowski, PhD, from the Nuclear Energy and Environmental Analysis Division at the National Centre for Nuclear Research. The scientist specialises in the analysis of turbulent flow in fuel cassettes of nuclear reactors.

The competition for scholarships was organised for the twentieth time. Young researchers submitted by the rectors of universities or directors of research institutes competed against each other within a given discipline. Applications were assessed by an independent panel of experts. A young scientist is a person conducting scientific activity, who is a doctoral student or academic teacher and has not held a doctoral degree for more than seven years.

Among the 228 laureates was Tomasz Kwiatkowski, PhD, assistant professor at the Nuclear Energy and Environmental Analysis Division of the NCBJ Department of Complex Systems. The scholarship was awarded in the field of engineering and technical sciences, in the discipline of environmental engineering, mining and energy. Dr Kwiatkowski's scientific work focuses on the study of turbulent coolant flow and heat transfer in fuel cassettes used in nuclear reactors, using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD).

One of the key aspects of the safe operation of nuclear reactors is the efficient dissipation of the heat accumulated inside the reactor. The most common reactor coolant used is water, although there are also designs that use liquid metals or are gas-cooled. The coolant - regardless of its type - does not flow uniformly through the space inside the core. The actual flow is full of disturbances in the form of local turbulence. Modern tools are not able to perfectly simulate turbulent flow, which by its nature is a very complex three-dimensional phenomenon. Therefore, the models used by scientists and engineers need to be revised and improved accordingly.

As part of his research, Tomasz Kwiatkowski has been involved in the creation of numerical reference databases, which are used to validate and improve calculations carried out using simplified methods. This allows for further refinement of currently existing turbulent models and an even more accurate representation of flows and heat transfer in closely packed fuel cassettes.

He has recently been intensively involved in the realisation of high-fidelity CFD thermal-fluid calculations for the HTGR-POLA reactor, as part of the project entitled “Technical description of a research high-temperature gas-cooled nuclear reactor” (Contract No. 1/HTGR/2021/14 dated 12.05.2021 for PLN 60 million) by the Minister of Science and Higher Education.

Dr Tomasz Kwiatkowski's scientific achievements have already been recognised on numerous occasions. The researcher received, among others, the Best Paper Award of the NUTHOS-13 conference or the title of ‘Scientist of the Future’ during the 6th Intelligent Development Forum.

We would like to congratulate Tomasz Kwiatkowski on his scholarship and wish him further success in his scientific career!