Curriculum Development for a Nuclear Track in Mechanical Engineering

With sponsorship from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) has developed a nuclear engineering track within its undergraduate mechanical engineering program. Eight courses from the mechanical engineering curriculum were replaced with nuclear engineering courses to create the track. For the benefit of other universities which may be contemplating a similar undertaking, the present article presents motivation for the track, justifies and describes the content of the nuclear courses that are included, and explains the courses that were replaced. In contrast to a stand-alone nuclear engineering bachelor's degree or a minor in nuclear engineering combined with a major in mechanical engineering, the VCU nuclear track equips graduates with both the breadth of an accredited mechanical engineering degree and a focused sequence of nuclear courses that is comparable to those taken in typical nuclear engineering degree programs. To achieve the goals of the track, the challenges were to determine which courses to remove from the curriculum while maintaining an accredited mechanical engineering degree, and which courses to add so that the new sequence compares well with typical nuclear engineering degree requirements.