Carbides for Future Fission Environments (CAFFE)

Summary (4000 characters)

This project will bring together eight investigators from world leading research and nuclear research universities together with three post-doctoral fellows and three PhD students to investigate zirconium carbide ceramic materials for their potential application in advanced nuclear reactor systems. These materials will be required to operate at high temperatures and suffer large numbers of atomic displacements due to radiation damage and yet will be required to resist corrosion and provide longer lifetimes than current materials. Following recommendations from international reports on the development of new materials for advanced fission reactors, the most modern techniques in materials modelling and characterisation and testing will be brought to bear on these new materials. Phase diagrams will be calculated for new proposed layered zirconium carbide ceramics to guide the preparation of new phases. These new phases and a few already known phases will be characterised on multiple scales with 13C nuclear magnetic resonance, transmission electron and synchrotron diffraction and lab-based x-ray tomography both before and after their irradiation and corrosion testing at the National Nuclear Users Facility/Dalton Cumbria Facility. The researchers will collaborate with leading players in the nuclear materials industry to evaluate the neutronics and manufacturability of these new materials to assess their potential to be carried forward to later stages of development. An international meeting will be hosted at the end of the programme to highlight progress made in the development of these materials to both to the wider industry and to international academic groups to increase the profile of the UK Nuclear Materials community in Generation IV and Generation III+ nuclear research.

The current project has a clear strategy of engaging with a small but committed group of industry project partners: Westinghouse, Rolls Royce, National Nuclear Laboratory through their regular involvement in the project 12 meetings. The programme will involve fourteen academics, post-doctoral fellows and PhD students and so make a substantive presence by attendance at international meetings of the Collaboration for Advanced Research on Accident Tolerant Fuel (CARAT) and to the proposed Horizon 2020 Euratom project FALSTAFF. The core group of researchers and industrial partners will work together in assessing the suitability of the materials to operate in an environment of fast or thermal neutrons through engagement of members of the Cambridge Nuclear Energy MPhil (25 p.a) and the Imperial MSc in Nuclear Engineering (20 p.a.) by offering dissertation projects in the evalution of the neutronics of the materials using codes developed by NNL and supervised by NNL experts. The yearly meetings of the research consortium will be attended by an international expert in the field of nuclear materials who will provide advice and act as a peer previewer for the yearly report. This will also enhance the reach and impact of the research by engaging with the leaders of leading international research groups. As a finale to the research programme the consortium will host an international meeting on the suitability of these MAX type phases for nuclear applications at a Cambridge College. Impact funds will allow the invitation of 6 distinguished speakers to 'headline' three sessions a day of a two day conference. This should ensure very good attendance from the international community. Funds are also requested to facilitate the attendance of all the consortium participants at this conference. One session of the conference will be dedicated to a facilitated discussion between industrialists, consortium members and other academics on the viability of moving the materials discussed at the meeting to the next level of technological readiness (TRL4). This activity has the potential to enhance the standing of UK Nuclear Materials Science around the world.