Institute of Physics and Power Engineering (Obninsk, Russia)

Institute of Physics and Power Engineering (Obninsk, Russia)

The Institute of Physics and Power Engineering (IPPE) was established on May 31, 1946 to solve scientific and technical problems of nuclear power development. In 1951 the IPPE was charged with the task of construction of nuclear power plant.

The world's first nuclear power plant, with the thermal power of 30 MW (5 mwe) was commissioned on June 27, 1954. After 5 year operation as a nuclear power plant, it has been in use as a research facility to test the channels generating electricity in direct thermionic energy conversion mode, for research of nuclear materials, production of isotopes, etc.

The Institute has become a major research and development center dealing with complex studies on the problems of reactor development for nuclear power facilities (NPFs), for various purposes. Solution of serious problems in science and technology is possible due to a high scientific potential of the IPPE where 67 Doctors, 370 Candidates of Science work, and about 4000 research workers and engineers altogether work, and up-to-date experimental and production base has been created. In April 1994, the IPPE was given the status of the State Research Center of Russian Federation (SRC IPPE). Its organisation structure corresponds to the main directions of its activities.

The main fields of the SRC IPPE activities are:

• Nuclear Power Engineering (sodium cooled fast reactors; water cooled, water moderated reactors, water cooled, graphite moderated reactors; liquid metal cooled reactors; on-board power generated facilities for space applications; nuclear pumped lasers).
• Fundamental and applied research (nuclear physics and neutronics, reactor core and radiation shielding physics; thermohydraulics and technology of coolants; corrosion of structural material; material irradiation study, solid state physics; computing and applied mathematics).
• Nuclear technologies for national economies (Isotopes, devices for medical purposes, industry and scientific research; Nuclear equipment and systems for ecological monitoring; Methods for deep purification of metals; Methods and means for filtration and purification of various media; Non-conventional sources of energy, etc.