Advanced Nuclear Materials
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Oxford
Department Name: Materials
Abstract
This proposal aims to maintain and expand the research impact of an internationally-leading team working on advanced structural materials for applications in nuclear fission and fusion reactors. The funding will enable us to support early-career postdoctoral researchers (ECRs) in a flexible manner tailored to their individual career trajectories, by providing job security, mentorship, opportunities for new skills acquisition and CPD training, and will facilitate their developing their own research ideas. Their training and scientific outputs will contribute to the resurgence of UK fission reactor programmes and the UK's internationally leading role in fusion science and technology. It will be a key factor in maintaining the integrity of the multi-skilled Oxford nuclear materials research team, and in developing the careers of its ECRs, and in reinforcing its position as an attractive environment for research, attracting and supporting new talent. The Platform Grant will also provide resources for the team to explore ambitious and novel research avenues, underpinning applications (from UK and international sources) for larger-scale funding to enhance the international position of the UK in nuclear research.
Planned Impact
1) Career development of individual researchers. Platform Grant funding will be used to support and promote the development of technical and research leadership skills of our most promising future research leaders in nuclear materials, with immediate impact on their careers, and in the longer term, on the vitality of this research sector within the UK.
2) Maintenance of critical mass and essential skills of an internationally -recognised research grouping, by buffering funding gaps for our best PDRAs. Thsi will have an immediate effect on our maintaining a coherent skilled team of postdoctoral researchers, helping us to maintain the momentum of our scientific research in nuclear materials, and helping us build our capability further by generating a more attractive research environment for potential new recruits.
3) Underpinning support for a unique UK research capability in a strategically important technological area. This is of national and international importance. For the UK's continuation of its leading role in the development of fusion power, we need to develop our capability so as to have a strong involvement in the design and construction of DEMO reactors, in which a key area is the development and assessment of fusion-capable materials. In fission, it is essential that the UK has expertise in the key technologies, rather than being simply a passive customer of overseas expertise. In new designs, such as Gen IV and/or Small Modular Reactors, the UK has the opportunity to be a more active technology and IP generator. All this will need a substantial and continuing stream of technical and scientific experts. This Platform Grant will have considerable impact in these more strategic aspects, by providing stabilising underpinning support for a centre of excellence in techniques central to design, characterisation and evaluation of improved and new nuclear materials.
2) Maintenance of critical mass and essential skills of an internationally -recognised research grouping, by buffering funding gaps for our best PDRAs. Thsi will have an immediate effect on our maintaining a coherent skilled team of postdoctoral researchers, helping us to maintain the momentum of our scientific research in nuclear materials, and helping us build our capability further by generating a more attractive research environment for potential new recruits.
3) Underpinning support for a unique UK research capability in a strategically important technological area. This is of national and international importance. For the UK's continuation of its leading role in the development of fusion power, we need to develop our capability so as to have a strong involvement in the design and construction of DEMO reactors, in which a key area is the development and assessment of fusion-capable materials. In fission, it is essential that the UK has expertise in the key technologies, rather than being simply a passive customer of overseas expertise. In new designs, such as Gen IV and/or Small Modular Reactors, the UK has the opportunity to be a more active technology and IP generator. All this will need a substantial and continuing stream of technical and scientific experts. This Platform Grant will have considerable impact in these more strategic aspects, by providing stabilising underpinning support for a centre of excellence in techniques central to design, characterisation and evaluation of improved and new nuclear materials.
Organisations
- University of Oxford (Lead Research Organisation)
- Amec Foster Wheeler UK (Project Partner)
- University of Manchester (Project Partner)
- Queen's University (Project Partner)
- Fermilab (Project Partner)
- Forschungszentrum Jülich (Project Partner)
- National Nuclear Laboratory (Project Partner)
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Project Partner)
- Rolls-Royce (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- Shimane University (Project Partner)
- University of Michigan–Ann Arbor (Project Partner)
- EDF Energy (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- University of Huddersfield (Project Partner)
- Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (Project Partner)
- Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Project Partner)
Publications
Abernethy R
(2019)
Effects of neutron irradiation on the brittle to ductile transition in single crystal tungsten
in Journal of Nuclear Materials
Armstrong D
(2019)
Microstructural Evolution of Neutron Irradiated T91 Steel in ATR
Auger M
(2020)
Nanoscale analysis of ion irradiated ODS 14YWT ferritic alloy
in Journal of Nuclear Materials
Beake B
(2018)
Temperature dependence of strain rate sensitivity, indentation size effects and pile-up in polycrystalline tungsten from 25 to 950 °C
in Materials & Design
Carruthers A
(2021)
Novel reduced-activation TiVCrFe based high entropy alloys
in Journal of Alloys and Compounds
Das S
(2018)
The effect of helium implantation on the deformation behaviour of tungsten: X-ray micro-diffraction and nanoindentation
in Scripta Materialia
Das S
(2019)
Hardening and Strain Localisation in Helium-Ion-Implanted Tungsten.
in Scientific reports
Davis T
(2020)
Electron microscopy and atom probe tomography of nanoindentation deformation in oxide dispersion strengthened steels
in Materials Characterization
Davis T
(2021)
Nanocluster evolution and mechanical properties of ion irradiated T91 ferritic-martensitic steel
in Journal of Nuclear Materials
Fletcher C
(2022)
Automated calibration of model-driven reconstructions in atom probe tomography
in Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics
Fletcher C
(2020)
Towards model-driven reconstruction in atom probe tomography
in Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics
Gong C
(2021)
Revealing the Role of Fluoride-Rich Battery Electrode Interphases by Operando Transmission Electron Microscopy
in Advanced Energy Materials
Gramlich A
(2019)
Atom Probe Tomography of Carbides in Fe-Cr-(W)-C Steels
in steel research international
Haley J
(2020)
Microstructural examination of neutron, proton and self-ion irradiation damage in a model Fe9Cr alloy
in Journal of Nuclear Materials
Haley J
(2017)
Dislocation loop evolution during in-situ ion irradiation of model FeCrAl alloys
in Acta Materialia
Haley J
(2019)
Helical dislocations: Observation of vacancy defect bias of screw dislocations in neutron irradiated Fe-9Cr
in Acta Materialia
Heuer S
(2020)
Microstructural and micromechanical assessment of aged ultra-fast sintered functionally graded iron/tungsten composites
in Materials & Design
Hong Z
(2017)
Development of a Novel Melt Spinning-Based Processing Route for Oxide Dispersion-Strengthened Steels
in Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A
Hussey A
(2020)
Statistically sound application of fiber push-out method for the study of locally non-uniform interfacial properties of SiC-SiC fiber composites
in Journal of the European Ceramic Society
Jenkins B
(2020)
A more holistic characterisation of internal interfaces in a variety of materials via complementary use of transmission Kikuchi diffraction and Atom probe tomography
in Applied Surface Science
Jenkins B
(2020)
The effect of composition variations on the response of steels subjected to high fluence neutron irradiation
in Materialia
Jones M
(2022)
Improving the Quantification of Deuterium in Zirconium Alloy Atom Probe Tomography Data Using Existing Analysis Methods
in Microscopy and Microanalysis
Kabel J
(2018)
Journal of Materials Research
in Ceramic composites: A review of toughening mechanisms and demonstration of micropillar compression for interface property extraction
Kabel J
(2018)
Ceramic composites: A review of toughening mechanisms and demonstration of micropillar compression for interface property extraction
in Journal of Materials Research
Kareer A
(2020)
Scratching the surface: Elastic rotations beneath nanoscratch and nanoindentation tests
in Acta Materialia
Kareer A
(2019)
Short communication: 'Low activation, refractory, high entropy alloys for nuclear applications'
in Journal of Nuclear Materials
Kareer A
(2018)
An analytical method to extract irradiation hardening from nanoindentation hardness-depth curves
in Journal of Nuclear Materials
Klimenkov M
(2016)
Effect of neutron irradiation on the microstructure of tungsten
in Nuclear Materials and Energy
Kuksenko V
(2021)
Radiation induced hardening of beryllium during low temperature He implantation
in Journal of Nuclear Materials
Leide A
(2020)
Measurement of swelling-induced residual stress in ion implanted SiC, and its effect on micromechanical properties
in Acta Materialia
Li B
(2020)
Measuring the brittle-to-ductile transition temperature of tungsten-tantalum alloy using chevron-notched micro-cantilevers
in Scripta Materialia
Liu J
(2023)
Controlling microstructure and mechanical properties of Ti-V-Cr-Nb-Ta refractory high entropy alloys through heat treatments
in Journal of Alloys and Compounds
Liu J
(2021)
Site-specific specimen preparation for SIMS analysis of radioactive samples.
in Journal of microscopy
Liu J
(2020)
Characterisation of deuterium distributions in corroded zirconium alloys using high-resolution SIMS imaging
in Acta Materialia
Liu J
(2020)
In-situ TEM study of irradiation-induced damage mechanisms in monoclinic-ZrO2
in Acta Materialia
Lloyd M
(2019)
Decoration of voids with rhenium and osmium transmutation products in neutron irradiated single crystal tungsten
in Scripta Materialia
Lloyd M
(2019)
Radiation-induced segregation in W-Re: from kinetic Monte Carlo simulations to atom probe tomography experiments
in The European Physical Journal B
Pickering EJ
(2021)
High-Entropy Alloys for Advanced Nuclear Applications.
in Entropy (Basel, Switzerland)
Rayaprolu R
(2020)
Indentation testing on 3 MeV proton irradiated tungsten
in Nuclear Materials and Energy
Scales R
(2020)
On the brittle-to-ductile transition of the as-cast TiVNbTa refractory high-entropy alloy
in Materialia
Song K
(2020)
Characterising Ion-Irradiated FeCr: Hardness, Thermal Diffusivity and Lattice Strain
in Acta Materialia
Song K
(2022)
Deformation behaviour of ion-irradiated FeCr: A nanoindentation study
in Journal of Materials Research
Zayachuk Y
(2019)
Linking microstructure and local mechanical properties in SiC-SiC fiber composite using micromechanical testing
in Acta Materialia
Zayachuk Y
(2017)
Nanoindentation study of the combined effects of crystallography, heat treatment and exposure to high-flux deuterium plasma in tungsten
in Journal of Nuclear Materials
Zhang Z
(2022)
The effects of irradiation on CrMnFeCoNi high-entropy alloy and its derivatives
in Progress in Materials Science
Zhao S
(2021)
Amorphization in extreme deformation of the CrMnFeCoNi high-entropy alloy.
in Science advances
Šcepanovic M
(2018)
Characterisation of ODS Fe-14Cr-2W-0.3Ti before and after high temperature triple and low temperature single ion irradiations
in Materials Characterization
| Description | New methods for the analysis of nuclear materials have been developed and applied to a wide range of nuclear materials. |
| Exploitation Route | Use the new methods |
| Sectors | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Energy,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology |