Proceedings

Foreword

The 33rd International Conference Nuclear Energy for the New Europe, traditionally organised by the Nuclear Society of Slovenia, took place in Portorož from 9th to 12th September 2024. The main goal of the meeting is to promote international cooperation between experts from nuclear power plants, nuclear research organisations, educational institutions, industrial companies and regulatory authorities.

This year, our conference brought together experts from all of the above areas, with a particular focus on the latest developments in fission and fusion energy research with this year’s theme: "Nuclear Research: Securing a Predictable Future".

NENE 2024 started with a pre-conference hybrid SMR Stakeholder Engagement event, coordinated by the Slovenian members of the European Industrial Alliance on SMRs. On the first day, before the official opening of the conference, the press conference was held, moderated by Prof. Dr. Luka Snoj, Chairman of the Conference Program Committee, Prof. Dr. Igor Lengar, Member of the Management Board of the Nuclear Society of Slovenia, Prof. Dr. Boštjan Zalar, Director of the Jožef Stefan Institue and Jan Malec, President of the Young Generation Network of the Nuclear Society of Slovenia.

The conference was attended by 242 participants from 27 countries worldwide and international organizations. The conference held 5 interesting invited talks from top experts and vendors.

The activities that led to these proceedings began in February 2024 with the call for papers. In June, a meeting of the program committee took place in Ljubljana and online, where the program of the conference was determined. A large number of new scientific, technical and operational results were presented in the submitted papers. The conference proceedings contain peer-reviewed papers, photos of the venue and collected information about the conference. Following the tradition of the previous meetings, awards were given for the best paper prepared by a first author aged no more than 32 years (Young Author Award) and for the best poster (Best Poster Award). 12 young authors participated in the Young Author Award contest. Due to the large number of contestants and high quality of presented works, two Young Author Awards and two Best Poster Awards were given.

The Young Author Award was given to:

• Cyrille de Lurion de l’Egouthail for the paper  “ Shadowing Effect Correction for the Pavia TRIGA Reactor Using Monte Carlo Data and Reduced Modelling Techniques ”, co-authored by Lorenzo Loi, Stefano Riva, Carolina Introini and Antonio Cammi

and

• Jan Kren for the paper “ Exploring Taylor Bubble Dynamics in Counter-Current Flows: A Combined Numerical and Experimental Study ”, co-authored by Iztok Tiselj and Blaž Mikuž

Best Poster Award was given to:

• Alex Carpenter for the paper  “ Automated Object Detection and Position Extraction of Legacy Nuclear Waste Using a Robotic Manipulator ”, co-authored by David Megson-Smith and Thomas Scott

and

• Julijan Peric for the paper “ Enhancing Irradiation Facilities: A Study on the Upgraded Water Filtration System in the KATANA Water Activation Loop ”, co-authored by Domen Kotnik,Domen Govekar, Luka Snoj, Vladimir Radulović

Cyrille de Lurion de l’Egouthail, Jan Kren, Julijan Peric and Alex Carpenter with Andrej Trkov, Tanja Goričanec, Luka Snoj and Igor Lengar.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the members of the program committee, who solicited papers and elaborated the conference program. Members of the award committees diligently worked through the young authors’ papers or poster presentations, and selected the best. Our sincere appreciations go to all the participants, invited lectures, authors, session chairs and reviewers for their excellent contributions to the conference. We would also like to recognize the dedication and enthusiasm of the organizing committee and the members of the administrative and technical assistance team. We are indebted to the conference sponsors for their generous contributions to the event. Last, but not least, we would like to acknowledge the support of the Nuclear Society of Slovenia and the Reactor Physics Department of the Jožef Stefan Institute as the co-organizers of the conference.

We are looking forward to meeting you at the 34^rd International Conference Nuclear Energy for New Europe.