Ontario Tech University faculty and students team up for prestigious international awards

For the second time in just four years, Ontario Tech University has been recognized on the international stage for faculty-student collaboration on a nuclear engineering research paper.

Ontario Tech University was awarded the Akiyama Medal at the International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE) – 2012 Power Conference in Anaheim, California. ICONE is world’s largest annual international nuclear/thermal engineering conference. This year’s event brought together more than 1,000 delegates from around the world.

Ontario Tech University paper entitled Developing a Heat-Transfer Correlation for Supercritical CO₂ Flowing in Vertical Bare Tubes was the only entry in the Student Track category to be nominated for the Akiyama Medal – a prestigious international award presented by the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers. The paper included research efforts spanning two UOIT faculties: it was co-authored by a professor, a graduate student and undergraduate student from the Faculty of Energy Systems and Nuclear Engineering (FESNS), as well as a graduate student and professor from the Faculty of Science (FS).

“This remarkable achievement at ICONE not only demonstrates Ontario Tech University's depth in research excellence, it underscores our commitment to hands-on research collaboration opportunities between our students and faculty members,” said Dr. Michael Owen, associate provost, Research, Ontario Tech University. “The contributions made by the entire Ontario Tech University contingent at this major international gathering demonstrate how our philosophy of interdisciplinary research is helping drive innovation and meet the needs of industry in the evolving 21^st-century workplace.”

The co-authors of the Akiyama Medal-winning paper are: Gupta Sahil, Master of Applied Science (MASc) student, FESNS; Surendan Prabu, fourth-year Nuclear Engineering student; Dr. Igor Pioro, professor, FESNS, and ICONE 2012 conference chair; Donald McGillivray, MASc student, FS; and Dr. Liliana Trevani, assistant professor, FS.

Other Ontario Tech University students participating at ICONE 2012 were: Abdalla Ayman, MASc student; Farah Amjad, MASc student; Nafisah Khan, PhD student; Adam Lipchitz, PhD student; Tiberiu Preda, third-year Nuclear Engineering student; Wargha Peiman, PhD student; and Jeffrey Samuel, PhD student, all from FESNS. The group was the largest in the Student Track at the conference where they collectively presented 13 papers, 13 oral presentations and 13 posters.

Ontario Tech University also collected two other awards in the Student Track competition: Adam Lipchitz, Nafisah Khan, Dr. Glenn Harvel, professor, FESNS and Dr. Rachid Machrafi, professor, FESNS (Best Paper); and Wargha Peiman, Tiberiu Preda, Jeffrey Samuel, Dr. Pioro and Dr. Harvel (Best Poster).

Other Ontario Tech University faculty members contributing to award-winning papers at ICONE 2012 were: Dr. Harvel and Dr. Machrafi of FESNS, and Dr. Kamiel Gabriel of the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science. Dr. Brian Ikeda, FESNS, Dr. Harvel and Dr. Machrafi also served as track chairs, session chairs and reviewers at ICONE.

ICONE is the premier global conference for addressing the needs of the nuclear industry, bringing together the leading technical professionals that design, build, operate, overhaul and maintain power plants, or do power plant and equipment research and development. The focus of ICONE is on the technical state-of-the-art and the current status of nuclear power around the world.