Abdulsalam Shakhatreh

B.S., Mechanical Engineering, Virginia Tech

Abdulsalam Shakhatreh earned his B.Sc. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech University in May 2014. During his time at Virginia Tech, he worked as an undergraduate researcher at the Virginia Active Combustion Lab on extending the service life of turbines without disturbing or hindering the flow. Moreover, Abdulsalam designed, built, and tested a control panel to remotely control the flow of gases into the combustion rig to improve safety at the combustion lab.

Abdulsalam started his career in 2014 as a mechanical engineer at Belvac Production Machinery in Lynchburg, VA where he modeled continuous motion rotary machines and prepared detailed fabrication drawings per ASME Y14.5. He gained experience in Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) and became proficient in 3D cad modeling.

In 2015, Abdulsalam started his nuclear career at Robatel Technologies in Roanoke, VA as a mechanical design engineer where he designed nuclear equipment, wrote operations and maintenance procedures for Type B casks, and trained on the loading/unloading of casks to transport Type B radioactive waste at many nuclear facilities in the U.S. He is currently a project manager at Robatel and leads the design and fabrication of nuclear projects such as Type B transportation casks, support structures, lifting and handling equipment.

Abdulsalam is currently pursuing his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Nuclear Engineering. His research is focused the long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel in dry storage cask systems. He is studying Chloride-Induced Stress Corrosion Cracking (CISCC) under conditions consistently encountered in storage sites using accelerated laboratory experiments to simulate marine environments. Future goals are to combine experimental data and stochastic modeling methods to predict CISCC and aid in the technological and political decision-making process.

Outside of school, Abdulsalam enjoys traveling and spending time with family and friends.