PhD Studentship: Research Studentship in Radioactive Particle Transport in the Marine Environment

3.5-year D.Phil. studentship 

Project: The Fate of Radioactive Particles in the Marine Environment

Supervisors: Prof Wouter Mostert

Project description: From the mid 1960’s to mid 1990’s, irradiated fuel fragments (particles) were inadvertently released into the marine environment through authorised discharge routes from the Dounreay Fast Reactor Research site. Similar radioactive particle releases to the marine environment have occurred at Sellafield. Since the first detection of these particles in the early 1980’s, Dounreay’s Beach Monitoring Programme has detected and recovered thousands of radioactive particles from the marine environment, with more than 600 recovered from beaches local to the nuclear site. There exist significant uncertainties about their behaviour in those environments, especially around the effect of wave breaking, particle fragmentation and remobilisation.

The student will develop a wave model accounting for these effects that can better predict particle distributions around the environment, to assist particle tracking and recovery efforts, as well as developing general expertise in broader decommissioning efforts in the UK. Specific tasks include: understanding the local hydrodynamic effects on released particles in a turbulent- and wave-dominated environment; larger-scale modelling of wave-driven particle transport; and performing a case study of regional particle transport modelling in the marine environments around Dounreay and around Sellafield, using extensive datasets available from project partners and many others. This project is conducted with academic collaboration with Dr. Ioannis Karmpadakis at Imperial College London, in partnership with NRS Dounreay and Sellafield Ltd, and is funded by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and the UK National Nuclear Laboratory Limited (UKNNL).

Eligibility

This studentship is funded through the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and is open to Home students (full award – home fees plus stipend).

Award Value

Course fees are covered at the level set for Home students c. £10,070 p.a. The stipend (tax-free maintenance grant) is c. £20,780 p.a. for the first year, and at least this amount for a further two and a half years. 

Candidate Requirements

Prospective candidates will be judged according to how well they meet the following criteria:

• A first class or strong upper second-class undergraduate degree with honours (or equivalent) in Engineering, Physics or Materials Science
• Excellent English written and spoken communication skills

The following skills are desirable but not essential:

• Familiarity with coastal wave physics
• Familiarity with C programming language
• Programming experience with MATLAB or Python

Application Procedure

Informal enquiries are encouraged and should be addressed to Prof Wouter Mostert (wouter.mostert@eng.ox.ac.uk).

Candidates must submit a graduate application form and are expected to meet the graduate admissions criteria.  Details are available on the course page of the University website.

Please quote 25ENGCI_WM in all correspondence and in your graduate application.

Application deadline: noon on 18^th April 2025.

Start date: October 2025

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