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A day in the life of the nuclear community
The November issue of Nuclear News is focused on the individuals who make up our nuclear community.
We invited a small group of those individuals to tell us about their day-to-day work in some of the many occupations and applications of nuclear science and technology, and they responded generously. They were ready to tell us about the part they play, together with colleagues and team members, in supplying clean energy, advancing technology, protecting safety and health, and exploring fundamental science.
In these pages, we see a community that can celebrate both those workdays that record progress moving at a steady pace and the exceptional days when a goal is reached, a briefing is delivered, a contract goes through, a discovery is made, or an unforeseen challenge is overcome.
The Nuclear News staff hopes that you enjoy meeting these members of our community—or maybe get reacquainted with friends—through their words and photos.
Lin Hu, Karl D. Hammond, Brian D. Wirth, Dimitrios Maroudas
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 71 | Number 1 | January 2017 | Pages 36-51
Technical Paper | dx.doi.org/10.13182/FST16-105
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We report the results of a systematic atomic-scale analysis of small helium cluster dynamics near a Σ3<111>{121} symmetric tilt grain boundary (GB) in tungsten based on molecular-dynamics simulations according to a reliable interatomic interaction potential. We find that small, mobile helium clusters (Hen, 1 ≤ n ≤ 7) in the near-GB region are attracted to the GB due to an elastic cluster-GB interaction force. Moreover, as the clusters drift toward the GB, cluster trap mutation (TM) reactions in the near-GB region are activated at rates much higher than those in the bulk of the material’s grains. This near-GB cluster dynamics has significant effects on the near-GB defect structures and the amount of helium retained in the material upon plasma exposure. Each TM reaction generates a tungsten vacancy, which traps helium by forming an immobile helium-vacancy complex, and an interstitial tungsten atom in the form of an extended tungsten interstitial complex on the GB. This interstitial configuration is characterized by mobility that depends on the location where the TM reaction occurs: It is immobile when the vacancy produced by the TM reaction is located a few lattice planes away from the GB plane and highly mobile along a specific direction when the produced vacancy is located on the GB. The latter mechanism initiates a potentially fast migration path for W atoms along the GB toward a free surface, which may influence significantly the surface morphology of plasma-exposed tungsten.
