We initiate today a new series of posts in the blog targeting an specific niche of the materials at extremes community: the nuclear materials biweekly highlights. In this bimonthly newsletter, we will be covering some special picks of scientific research and development within the nuclear materials community. Obviously, the picks are made by this editor, so it is a subjective-decision based newsletter. Nevertheless, this editor is mostly welcome to accept suggestions and can be reached at: m.a.tunes[at]physics.org; we hope you guys enjoy!
More of Nuclear Fuel Cladding Coatings for Accident Tolerant Fuels: Cr coatings can crack under tensile stress
One of the very first works addressing on the mechanical response of a pure Cr coating onto Zirconium alloys has been recently published by a French group led by D.V. Nguyen. The Cr coatings had their mechanical behavior assessed via tensile tests in situ within a scanning electron microscope. Although good adhesion has been somehow demonstrated, the coatings cracked in a rather brittle manner! Influence of internal stresses after deposition of the coating remains to be addressed in order to explain such absence of ductility.
More on:
D.V. Nguyen et al. Mechanical behavior of a chromium coating on a zirconium alloy. Journal of Nuclear Materials 558 (2022) 153332.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022311521005559
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnucmat.2021.153332
Special Topic on Materials for Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)
S.C. Vogel and co-authors edited a special topic on the JOM published by The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society. This special topic covers the challenges associated with the design of SMRs with particular focus on space reactors. It is a must read for those interested in the miniaturization of nuclear reactors.
More on:
S.C. Vogel et al. Materials for Small Nuclear Reactors and Micro Reactors, Including Space Reactors. JOM (2021) in-press.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11837-021-04897-3 i
The (so far) Most Comprehensive Assessment on the Irradiation-Response of Novel Highly-Concentrated Alloys
Highly-concentrated alloys – a.k.a. High-entropy alloys (or HEAs, a bad nomenclature!) – holds the promise to be applied as future nuclear structural materials given the extraordinary numbers of recent works addressing on their (superior) radiation response. Although not all HEAs can be considered radiation-tolerant (an example here), Y. Zhang et al. consolidate the state-of-the-art knowledge on these alloys under irradiation in a very new article just published at the Chemical Reviews (American Chemical Society). The review paper focus on the perspective of chemical ability these alloys present to suppress and/or retard the manifestation of radiation damage only by manipulating chemical complexity at the atomic scale. A must read for those interested in future perspectives for nuclear materials. A lot of new good material’s physics also is explored, as characteristic of the excellent papers and investigations by Prof. Yanwen Zhang.
More on:
Y. Zhang et al. Tunable Chemical Disorder in Concentrated Alloys: Defect Physics and Radiation Performance. Chemical Reviews (2021) in-press.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.chemrev.1c00387
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemrev.1c00387
Next Nuclear Materials Highlights on the end of this month! See you guys there!
Materials at Extremes 