A NIFT-E testing capsule loaded with graphite samples.
As nations look to nuclear energy as a source of carbon-free electricity and heat, researchers and industry are developing a new generation of nuclear reactors to fill the need.
These advanced nuclear reactors will work in concert with renewables to provide safe, efficient, and economical Power for a wider range of applications than the large electricity-generating machines that currently provide roughly 25 percent of the world’s carbon-free power.
But before large-scale deployment of advanced reactors, researchers need to understand and test the safety and performance of the technologies—especially the coolants and materials—that make them possible.
Now, the United States and the United Kingdom have teamed up to test hundreds of advanced nuclear materials.
PNNL researchers (from left) Isabella van Rooyen, Subhashish Meher, and Steven Livers are part of the team that developed a durable new nickel-based “super alloy” by replacing cobalt with manganese. (Photo: Andrea Starr/PNNL)
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has reported that researchers there have created a tough new alloy that has potential use in advanced nuclear reactors and that is not dependent on a difficult-to-get element. The research team, which included materials scientists Isabella van Rooyen, Subhashish Meher, and Steven Livers, started its experiments with the highly durable nickel-chromium-cobalt-molybdenum “super alloy” known as Inconel 617 (IN617).
General Atomics SiGA Cladding Accident Tolerant Fuel Rods
General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) is charting a path to advance SiGA® silicon carbide (SiC) ceramic matrix composite cladding for nuclear fuel rods to provide enhanced safety, improved operational performance, and economics benefits for the existing Light Water Reactor (LWR) fleet as well as future advanced reactor systems.
Judge stands outside INL’s new Sample Preparation Laboratory.
(Photo: INL)
Idaho National Laboratory’s newest facility—the Sample Preparation Laboratory (SPL)—sits across the road from the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF), which started operating in 1975. SPL will host the first new hot cells at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) in 50 years, giving INL researchers and partners new flexibility to test the structural properties of irradiated materials fresh from the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) or from a partner’s facility.
Materials meant to withstand extreme conditions in fission or fusion power plants must be tested under similar conditions and pushed past their breaking points so performance and limitations can be understood and improved. Once irradiated, materials samples can be cut down to size in SPL and packaged for testing in other facilities at INL or other national laboratories, commercial labs, or universities. But they can also be subjected to extreme thermal or corrosive conditions and mechanical testing right in SPL, explains Colin Judge, who, as INL’s division director for nuclear materials performance, oversees SPL and other facilities at the MFC.
SPL won’t go “hot” until January 2026, but Judge spoke with NN staff writer Susan Gallier about its capabilities as his team was moving instruments into the new facility.
