History of Department of Nuclear Engineering

The Nuclear Engineering Laboratory was inaugurated following the establishment of the Department of Nuclear Engineering in the Kyoto University Graduate School of Engineering in April 1957. In April 1958, the Department of Nuclear Engineering was established in the Faculty of Engineering. In the four years after its establishment the Department ran a total of six divisions. Later, a cooperative division was added to the Department of Nuclear Engineering.

In FY1994, as part of a reorganization of the Graduate School of Engineering, one division was shifted to the Department of Applied Energy Engineering, and the Department of Nuclear Engineering adopted a large-division system, comprising of one full-time graduate school division and two core divisions. In addition, two of the four research divisions of the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute that participated in the graduate school education program to provide basic training for staff before the reorganization ran cooperative research sections of the department. One division in the Institute of Atomic Energy and one in the Plasma Physics Laboratory also ran a cooperative research section making a total of four sub-departments. The Department of Engineering Science was created with the reorganization of the Faculty of Engineering in 1994. With seven schools, including the six existing schools, the faculty began offering a four-year integrated education program. At the same time, it decided to accept students who were assigned to the Nuclear Engineering sub-course of the Energy Science and Engineering Course. In 1995, Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute was reorganized, and two new research sub-departiments were offered as cooperative sub-departments from 1996. Furthermore, in 1996 the Graduate School of Energy Science was founded, and the Institute of Atomic Energy was incorporated into the Institute of Advanced Energy. At the same time, the cooperative sub-departments were reorganized and only the four research fields of the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute were offered as cooperative sub-departments.

In FY1999 the Quantum Science and Engineering Center was established, as an annex of the Graduate School of Engineering, and in addition to cooperating in running the divisions for the department, it began a close working relationship with the Department of Nuclear Engineering. In the launch of this center, the educational and research activities of the Radiation Laboratory played a major role. This laboratory was constructed at Kyoto University's Uji campus in FY1963 as a facility for accommodating special equipment of the Nuclear Engineering Laboratory. In addition to installing six special facilities, which were developed over the course of four extensions to the Radiation Laboratory on the Uji campus, in FY1988 an ion beam analyzer device was installed as advanced equipment. This was used as a shared facility by Kyoto University for both education and research purposes. Later, in FY1993 budget funding was secured by the Faculty of Engineering Radioisotope Research Laboratory for incorporating RI facilities at the Yoshida campus. The lab was completed in 1995, and education and research into RI from nuclear systems commenced. In FY2004, Kyoto University's Uji Multidisciplinary Laboratory Building that houses the Quantum Science and Engineering Center and other facilities was constructed.