About

Karen Vierow Kirkland is a Professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M University. She holds a Ph.D. in Quantum Engineering and System Sciences from the University of Tokyo, an M.S. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering from Purdue University. Her research interests include thermal hydraulics, multiphase flow, condensation heat transfer, reactor safety, severe accident analysis, and reactor design. She is affiliated with the Nuclear Power Engineering Research Group and has contributed to advancing understanding in these areas through her research.

Research topics

• Mechanics
• Physics
• Nuclear engineering
• Engineering
• Thermodynamics
• Environmental science
• Marine engineering
• Materials science
• Meteorology
• Composite material
• Mechanical engineering

Selected publications

• Effects of Two-Phase Steam-Water Flow on Terry Steam Turbine Performance

  Nuclear Technology · 2026-03-30

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Referee report. For: Steam Condensation Scaled Experiment in the Presence of Non-Condensable Gases for Small Modular Reactor Containment Passive Safety [version 1; peer review: 1 approved, 1 approved with reservations]

  Faculty of 1000 Research Ltd · 2025-01-01

  peer-reviewOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Risk-Informed Consequence-Driven Hybrid Cyber-Physical Protection System Security Optimization for MSRE

  2025-01-01

  article
  PublisherDOI

• A Consequence-Informed Licensing Path Selection for the Design of Physical Protection Systems at Commercial Nuclear Power Facilities

  Nuclear Science and Engineering · 2024-03-12 · 2 citations

  articleSenior author

  The survivability of the domestic nuclear power industry depends on the cost-competitiveness of safe and secure nuclear power generation. Advanced reactor design concepts aim to have increased safety margins over traditional large light water reactors (LWRs). With increased safety margins comes the potential for a corresponding decrease in off-site risk to the general public from a hypothetical release of radioactivity due to sabotage or theft. Without sacrificing safety or security, advanced reactor designers may be able to achieve operational cost improvements over current LWRs in part by designing less burdensome physical protection systems (PPSs) and by replacing on-site response forces with off-site response forces. To accommodate these developments, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is drafting new rulemakings for physical security when licensing through the current frameworks in 10 CFR 50 or 10 CFR 52 along with drafting an entirely new licensing framework: 10 CFR 53. A novel technology-inclusive consequence-informed methodology for the selection of the optimal licensing path for the design of PPSs at advanced fixed-site commercial nuclear power facilities is presented herein. This methodology proposes integrating security considerations at the beginning of a reactor facility design effort to streamline the licensing process. Off-site total effective dose equivalents at the exclusion area and low population zone boundaries were identified as the key metrics when determining a design's most appropriate licensing path that in turn affects the design requirements placed upon the PPS. Given these metrics, source-term generation of potential adversary-induced physics-based sabotage actions utilizing severe accident modeling software and off-site plume dispersal modeling were identified as appropriate for determining siting constraints, potential target sets for hypothetical sabotage events, and their subsequent off-site dose consequences. The methodology proposes using the consequence results from the sabotage modeling, in combination with desired cost-saving PPS characteristics, to help inform the licensing path selection. Once a licensing path is chosen, the methodology utilizes the Design and Evaluation Process Outline to evaluate an effective PPS following the licensing requirements placed on the facility. This paper also presents examples of hypothetical commercial nuclear power facilities with varying consequence levels and demonstrations of how to select the optimal licensing pathways for each.

  PublisherDOI

• Evaluation of Accident Tolerant Fuel Performance Under Long-Term Station Blackout Conditions

  2023-01-01

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Experimental Investigation of the Effect of RCIC Steam Exhaust Line Design on Suppression Pool Thermal Stratification

  2023-01-01

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• U.S. Efforts in Support of Examinations at Fukushima Daiichi - November 2022 Meeting Notes and Information Request Status

  2023-04-01 · 1 citations

  reportOpen access

  Information obtained from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (Daiichi) is required to inform future Decontamination and Decommissioning (D&D) activities, improving the ability of the Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Incorporated (TEPCO Holdings) to characterize potential hazards and to ensure the safety of workers involved with cleanup activities. This information also has important implications for the safety and operation of U.S. commercial nuclear power plants. This document summarizes results from the Fiscal Year 2023 (FY2023) U.S. effort to review Daiichi information and extract insights to enhance the safety of existing and future nuclear power plant designs. This U.S. effort, which was initiated in 2014 by the Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy, is completed by a group of experts in reactor safety and plant operations that identify examination needs and evaluate recent Daiichi examination data to address these needs. Fukushima-related information and associated discussions during these meetings benefit operating, new, and advanced reactors. Significant safety insights have been and are continuing to be obtained in several areas: system and component performance, radionuclide surveys and sampling, debris end-state location, combustible gas effects, and plant operations and maintenance. In addition to reducing uncertainties related to severe accident modeling progression, these insights have and continue to be used to update guidance for severe accident prevention, mitigation, and emergency planning. Furthermore, Daiichi-related activities, such as code modeling improvements and analysis, testing, and new technology deployment efforts, have the potential to offer additional benefits to the operating fleet and new LWR and non-LWR designs. U.S. evaluations of obtained examination information and input regarding future Daiichi examinations are of interest to several organizations within Japan. Since its inception, the U.S. has provided consensus input for high priority time-sequenced examination tasks and supporting research activities. In their Mid-to-Long-term Examination Plan for 1F investigations, TEPCO included all remaining U.S. consensus information requests and additional information requests they identified. TEPCO periodically provides reports on the status of these requests (reflecting D&D priorities, new insights from investigations, and new technologies that become available). Hence, U.S. experts agreed that it was appropriate for TEPCO to track and prioritize these information requests as D&D progresses. U.S. experts will continue to review and comment on the information obtained from examinations and, as needed, provide additional details and relevant background material to support future examinations. As documented in this report, several other items, such as additional details on information requests pertaining to ex-vessel examinations, relevant references from prior research, additional documents to provide insights regarding recent investigation findings, and reviews of recently released documents, were agreed to during the FY2023 meeting.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Experimental investigation of thermal stratification development in boiling water reactor suppression pools during reactor core isolation cooling system operation

  Annals of Nuclear Energy · 2023-12-07 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Concept Descriptions for the VTR Rabbit System and Driver Fuel Test Assemblies

  Nuclear Science and Engineering · 2023-03-01

  articleOpen access

  Two of the experiment vehicles being developed for the Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) are presented here. The first is a rabbit system that will enable rapid insertion of small test capsules into the high fast flux of the VTR core for relatively short durations. The rabbit concept development includes the construction/demonstration of a near-full-scale system in a deep-water pool to demonstrate functionality, development of a concept of operations and initial procedures, and validation of thermal-hydraulic modeling. In addition, modeling efforts are underway to simulate the thermal and neutronic environment of a rabbit capsule. The second type of experiment vehicle presented here is a driver fuel test assembly for inserting fuel and materials tests into the core by replacing a driver fuel assembly. A novel design for dismountable test assemblies is proposed for the VTR.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• An experimental study on the effect of liquid properties on the counter-current flow limitation (CCFL) during gas/liquid counter-current two-phase flow in a 1/30 scaled-down of Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) hot leg geometry

  Nuclear Engineering and Design · 2022 · 5 citations

  • Mechanics
  • Materials science
  • Thermodynamics
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Abhay Patil

  Southwest Research Institute

  9 shared

• Yintao Wang

  8 shared

• Gerald L. Morrison

  Met Éireann

  8 shared

• Shyam Sundar

  8 shared

• Matthew Solom

  6 shared

• Chris Faucett

  4 shared

• Ashraf Alfandi

  Mitchell Institute

  4 shared

• Bradley Beeny

  Sandia National Laboratories

  3 shared

Labs

• Nuclear Power EngineeringPI

Education

• MSNE, Nuclear Engineering

  University of California Berkeley

• BSNE, Nuclear Engineering

  Purdue University

• PhD, Quantum Engineering and System Sciences

  University of Tokyo

Awards & honors

• Texas Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) Select Young Fac…
• Texas A&M University College of Engineering Faculty Fellow f…