Kvinnor väljer kärnteknik - två av dem får årets Sigvard Eklund pris

Svenskt Kärntekniskt Centrum (SKC) delar varje år ut Sigvard Eklundpriset till bästa examensarbete och bästa doktorsavhandling i kärnteknik. Prisen är på 25000 kronor respektive 50000 kronor. Båda prisen går 2009 till kvinnor, Petty Bernitt Cartemo och Åsa Henning. ”Detta bekräftar en trend vi sett de senaste åren att andelen kvinnor ökar inom kärnteknik”, säger SKCs föreståndare, professor Jan Blomgren. Prisceremonin hölls på Varbergs fästning den 29 september, i samband med SKCs årliga konvent, i år på Ringhals.

Winners 2009: Åsa Henning and Petty Bernitt Cartemo

Åsa Henning (former Magnusson), Lund University, was awarded the price for the best PhD thesis, which has the title ”C-14 Produced by Nuclear Power Reactors
– Generation and Characterization of Gaseous, Liquid and Solid Waste”. Her work is characterized by the review committee:

"The work is well motivated and of high relevance for present and future nuclear technology. It is clearly written and the author analyzes the problem from many perspectives. The experimental work is impressive and the analysis of the data, including new data, is very adequate. The author shows the relevance of distinction between carbon-14 in organic and inorganic compounds and she delveloped a new analysis method to separately quantify the carbon-14 in the waste and release streams. This method has already been successfully applied in korea. Åsa Henning shows the weaknesses in the present methods of waste assessment and gives the way for improvement. She also gives valuable suggestions for the handling of this type of waste which has an important impact on final storage."

Petty Bernitt Cartemo, Chalmers university of technology, was awarded the price for the best master thesis, which has the title ”In-Core Neutron Noise Analysis for Diagnosis of Fuel Assembly Vibrations”. Her work is characterized by the review committee:

"Use of accurate diagnostic methods to detect and characterize anomalous behaviour in the reactor core is important for safe and economical reactor operation. In the present study a methodology based on analysis of neutron noise has been applied to determine and classify flow-induced vibration characteristics of fuel and internals of the Ringhals 4 reactor. The analysis was based on radial and axial in-core measurements which also could be correlated with simultaneous ex-core measurements. The thesis is very well written and the discussion focussed on identification of probable vibration modes."

Previous winners

MSc category

PhD category