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HEAT Lab

UC Berkeley Nuclear Engineering Department

Welcome to the HEAT (High-temperature Energy-system and Advanced Technology) Lab under the direction of Dr. Guanyu Su in the Nuclear Engineering Department at UC Berkeley.

Slide that displays the text: What HEAT lab does: Molten Salt Technology, High-Temperature Thermal Storage, ML for Nuclear Systems, Advanced Diagnostic Tools
Slide that says molten salt technology: heat and mass transport + device development. There is an image captioned Multi-physics simulation that depicts levels of Tritium in Salt and levels of Tritium in 326 in a vessel. A second image that is captioned Salt loop test bed depicts a device that has an external section and a salt supply system.
Slide that says Machine learning for nuclear systems: accelerate + generalize. With images of infrared and visible data, being added together with a plus sign and an arrow that results in the text CHF, Post-CHF and More... The words Slow and Limited surround the arrow.
Slide that says High-temperature thermal storage: compact + modular. An image of a nuclear system with the caption Sensible heat storage, an arrow points from this to a bracket that includes the text phase change and chemical bond.
Slide that has the text Advanced diagnostic tools: how to distribute the measuring points. An image of a curve is captioned Optic fiber based distribution sensor for over 700 degrees C. A second image captioned Wireless sensor network for prognostic plant monitoring depicts a system that delivers nuclear energy to a city, with sensors connecting the network together.

Our research group focuses on addressing critical scientific and engineering questions in the areas of nuclear reactor thermal-hydraulics and clean energy systems. We aim to support the deployment of next-generation nuclear reactors and future sustainable energy systems by advancing our findings and pioneering solutions. We believe that achieving carbon neutrality and ensuring economic growth can be mutually beneficial activities through the integration of nuclear energy.

Our studies primarily cover four topics: heat and mass transfer in high-temperature molten salt technology; high-temperature thermal storage for advanced energy systems; development of advanced thermal-fluid diagnostic tools and distributed wireless sensors; machine learning applications in nuclear reactor experiment and simulation.