如今, 美国有 94 个核反应堆, 运行，比世界上任何其他国家都多,，这些装置总共提供了全国近 20%的电力。根据 Dean Price, 的说法，这是一项重大成就,，但他认为我国需要更多的核能,，尤其是在人们迫切寻求化石燃料发电厂替代品的时刻。正是出于这个原因，他成为了一名核工程师 —，以确保核技术能够在这个非常需要的时期完成任务。
Today, there are 94 nuclear reactors operating in the United States, more than in any other country in the world, and these units collectively provide nearly 20 percent of the nation的 electricity. That is a major accomplishment, according to Dean Price, but he believes that our country needs much more out of nuclear energy, especially at a moment when alternatives to fossil fuel-based power plants are desperately being sought. He became a nuclear engineer for this very reason — to make sure that nuclear technology is up to the task of delivering in this time of considerable need.
这是他渴望参与, 的一项使命，他为自己设定的目标远非适中: 他希望帮助设计和引入新型核反应堆,，其基础是现有核电站的安全性, 经济性, 和可靠性。
That was a mission he was eager to take part in, and the goals he set for himself were far from modest: He wanted to help design and usher in a new class of nuclear reactors, building on the safety, economics, and reliability of the existing nuclear fleet.
Price 从未动摇过这个目标,，他的 一路上只找到了鼓励。核工程界, 他说, “ 很小, 紧密结合, 并且非常欢迎。一旦你投入其中,，大多数人就不愿意做其他事情。”
Price has never wavered from this objective, and he的 only found encouragement along the way. The nuclear engineering community, he says, “is small, close-knit, and very welcoming. Once you get into it, most people are not inclined to do anything else.”
阐明物理过程之间的关系
Illuminating the relationships between physical processes
在伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳分校香槟分校, 本科生的第一个研究项目中，普赖斯研究了用于储存废反应堆燃料棒的钢和混凝土桶的安全性，这些燃料棒’通常在水箱,中冷却了几年。他的分析表明，这种储存方法相当安全,，尽管在该国，关于长期处置, 方面这些燃料桶, 最终应如何处理的问题仍然悬而未决。
In his first research project as an undergraduate at the University of Illinois Urbana at Champaign, Price studied the safety of the steel and concrete casks used to store spent reactor fuel rods after they’ve cooled off in tanks of water, typically for several years. His analysis indicated that this storage method was quite safe, although the question as to what should ultimately be done with these fuel casks, in terms of long-term disposal, remains open in this country.
2020 年在密歇根大学开始研究生学习后, Price 开始了他 至今仍在从事的不同研究领域。研究, 领域称为多物理场建模,，涉及观察核反应堆核心中发生的各种物理过程，了解它们如何相互作用—，这是一次研究这些过程的替代方法。
After starting graduate studies at the University of Michigan in 2020, Price took up a different line of research that he的 still engaged in today. That area of study, called multiphysics modeling, involves looking at various physical processes going on in the core of a nuclear reactor to see how they interact — an alternative to studying these processes one at a time.
一个关键过程, 中子学, 涉及中子如何在反应堆堆芯中嗡嗡作响，导致核裂变,，从而产生能量。第二个过程称为热工水力学,，涉及冷却反应堆以提取中子产生的热量。多物理场模拟, 分析这两个过程如何相互作用,，可以显示反应堆发电时带走的热量如何影响中子, 的行为，因为燃料, 越热，引起裂变的可能性就越小。
One key process, neutronics, concerns how neutrons buzz around in the reactor core causing nuclear fission, which is what generates the power. A second process, called thermal hydraulics, involves cooling the reactor to extract the heat generated by neutrons. A multiphysics simulation, analyzing how these two processes interact, could show how the heat carried away as the reactor produces power affects the behavior of neutrons, because the hotter the fuel is, the less likely it is to cause fission.
“如果您想更改功率水平,或对反应堆进行任何操作,，燃料温度是您需要了解的关键输入,” Price说。 “多物理场建模使我们能够将裂变中子过程与热属性,温度关联起来。那,反过来,可以帮助我们预测反应堆在不同条件下的表现。”
“If you ever want to change your power level, or do anything with the reactor, the temperature of the fuel is a critical input that you need to know,” says Price. “Multiphysics modeling allows us to correlate the fission neutronics processes with a thermal property, temperature. That, in turn, can help us predict how the reactor will behave under different conditions.”
轻水反应堆, 的多物理场建模目前正在运行，容量约为 1,000 兆瓦,，已经相当完善, Price 表示。但先进反应堆 — 容量范围从 20 到 300 MW) 左右的小型模块化反应堆 (SMR 和额定功率为 1 到 20 MW) — 的微反应堆 ( 的建模方法远不那么先进。目前，这些反应堆中只有极少数在运行,，但普莱斯将精力集中在它们上，因为它们具有更便宜、更安全地发电的潜力,，并且在功率和尺寸方面具有更大的灵活性。
Multiphysics modeling for light water reactors, which are the ones operating today with capacities on the order of 1,000 megawatts, are pretty well established, Prices says. But methods for modeling advanced reactors — small modular reactors (SMRs with capacities ranging from around 20 to 300 MW) and microreactors (rated at 1 to 20 MW) — are far less advanced. Only a very small number of these reactors are operating today, but Price is focusing his efforts on them because of their potential to produce power more cheaply and more safely, along with their greater flexibility in power and size.
尽管多物理场模拟为核界提供了丰富的信息,，但它们可能需要超级计算机来求解, 或找到, 耦合且极其困难的非线性方程的近似解。为了大大减轻计算负担, Price 正在积极探索人工智能方法，这些方法可以提供类似的答案，同时完全绕过那些繁重的方程。自 2025 年 9 月加入麻省理工学院以来，这一直是他研究议程的中心主题。
Although multiphysics simulations have supplied the nuclear community with a wealth of information, they can require supercomputers to solve, or find approximate solutions to, coupled and extremely difficult nonlinear equations. In the hopes of greatly reducing the computational burden, Price is actively exploring artificial intelligence approaches that could provide similar answers while bypassing those burdensome equations altogether. That has been a central theme of his research agenda since he joined the MIT faculty in September 2025.
人工智能的关键作用
A crucial role for artificial intelligence
人工智能和机器学习方法,（尤其是,）擅长的是发现数据,中隐藏的模式，例如对核电站运行至关重要的变量之间的相关性。例如,价格说,“如果你告诉我你的反应堆的功率水平,它[AI]可以告诉你燃料温度是多少，甚至可以告诉你核心的3维温度分布。”如果这可以在不求解任何复杂的微分方程的情况下完成,计算成本可以大大降低。
What artificial intelligence and machine-learning methods, in particular, are good at is finding patterns concealed within data, such as correlations between variables critical to the functioning of a nuclear plant. For example, Price says, “if you tell me the power level of your reactor, it [AI] could tell you what the fuel temperature is and even tell you the 3-dimensional temperature distribution in your core.” And if this can be done without solving any complicated differential equations, computational costs could be greatly reduced.
Price 正在研究人工智能可能特别有用的几种应用,，例如帮助设计新型反应堆。 “我们可以依靠过去 50 年开发的安全框架对拟议设计进行安全分析,” 他说。 “这样, AI将不会直接与任何安全关键的东西交互。” 正如他所看到的, AI’的角色将是增强既定程序,而不是取代它们,帮助填补现有的知识空白。
Price is investigating several applications where AI may be especially useful, such as helping with the design of novel kinds of reactors. “We could then rely on the safety frameworks developed over the past 50 years to carry out a safety analysis of the proposed design,” he says. “In this way, AI will not be directly interfacing with anything that is safety-critical.” As he sees it, AI的 role would be to augment established procedures, rather than replacing them, helping to fill in existing gaps in knowledge.
当机器学习模型获得足够多的数据来从,学习时，它可以帮助我们更好地理解关键物理过程—之间的关系，而无需求解非线性微分方程。
When a machine-learning model is given a sufficient amount of data to learn from, it can help us better understand the relationship between key physical processes — again without having to solve nonlinear differential equations.
“通过真正确定这些关系,，我们可以在早期阶段做出更好的设计决策,” Price 说。 “当该技术开发和部署时,人工智能可以帮助我们做出更智能的控制决策，使我们能够以更安全、更经济的方式运行我们的反应堆。”
“By really pinning down those relationships, we can make better design decisions in the early stages,” Price says. “And when that technology is developed and deployed, AI can help us make more intelligent control decisions that will enable us to operate our reactors in a safer and more economical way.”
回馈养育他的社会
Giving back to the community that nurtured him
简而言之，, 他的主要目标之一是将人工智能的优势带给核工业,，他认为这种可能性是巨大的，而且基本上尚未开发。普莱斯还相信，作为麻省理工学院的教授，他有能力让我们更接近他所设想的核未来。在他看来, 他 不仅致力于开发下一代反应堆,，而且还帮助培养该领域的下一代领导者。
Simply put, one of his chief goals is to bring the benefits of AI to the nuclear industry, and he views the possibilities as vast and largely untapped. Price also believes that he is well-positioned as a professor at MIT to bring us closer to the nuclear future that he envisions. As he sees it, he的 working not only to develop the next generation of reactors, but also to help prepare the next generation of leaders in the field.
去年秋天，普莱斯与 KEPCO 核科学与工程实践教授 Curtis Smith, 共同教授的设计课程中，结识了“下一代” 的一些潜在成员。对于 Price, 来说，介绍只持续了几个月,，但这足够长的时间让他发现麻省理工学院的学生非常积极, 勤奋, 并且有能力。毫不奇怪,这些恰好与他’希望在加入他的研究团队的学生身上找到的品质相同。
Price became acquainted with some prospective members of that “next generation” in a design course he co-taught last fall with Curtis Smith, the KEPCO Professor of the Practice of Nuclear Science and Engineering. For Price, that introduction lasted just a few months, but it was long enough for him to discover that MIT students are exceptionally motivated, hard-working, and capable. Not surprisingly, those happen to be the same qualities he的 hoping to find in the students that join his research team.
Price 生动地回忆起他在该领域迈出第一个 , 尝试性步骤时所获得的支持。现在，他的从本科生晋升为教授,，并在此过程中获得了大量知识,，他希望他的学生“能够体验到我进入该领域时的同样感觉。” 除了改善核反应堆设计和操作的具体目标, Price说, “I希望永久保持同样有趣和健康的环境这让我首先爱上了核工程。”
Price vividly recalls the support he received when taking his first, tentative steps in this field. Now that he的 moved up the ranks from undergraduate to professor, and acquired a substantial body of knowledge along the way, he wants his students “to experience that same feeling that I had upon entering the field.” Beyond his specific goals for improving the design and operation of nuclear reactors, Price says, “I hope to perpetuate the same fun and healthy environment that made me love nuclear engineering in the first place.”