Dr. Matthew Kasemer, assistant professor and graduate program director in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, recently received $300,000 in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy to study the deformation response of metals exposed to irradiated environments.
The funding was awarded as part of an overall $1.1 million award for a collaborative project with researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory. The project, titled “Characterization of Irradiation-Assisted Stress Corrosion Cracking in 316 Stainless Steel Baffle-Former Bolts Harvested from a Commercial Pressurized Water Reactor,” aims to understand how metals subjected to the extreme environments found in nuclear power generators ultimately fail, with a particular focus on the role of defects induced by irradiation.
Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory will examine components harvested from a pressurized water reactor after their service life, using various experimental techniques to investigate the post-irradiation microstructural state of the material, while researchers at Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will conduct experiments to probe the mechanical behavior of the material.
According to Kasemer, these experiments will “establish a link between the effects of radiation and the propensity for material failure.”
Following the experimental stage, Kasemer and his lab, the Advanced Computational Materials Engineering Lab, will formulate and calibrate a micromechanical model that can be used to predict the deformation response of irradiated metals. According to Kasemer, the goal of this modeling is to both gain scientific knowledge about these fundamental phenomena and offer design engineers a tool by which to better predict the behavior of these materials in service.
“This project will give the scientific community much better insight into deformation behavior of irradiated materials at small length scales during deformation loading, which has historically been out of reach owing to experimental limitations and safety concerns,” Kasemer said. “Our research will inform models which engineers can utilize to design safer and longer-lasting components in the next generation of nuclear reactors.”
The fact that the examined materials will be harvested from an actual pressurized water reactor makes this study unique.
“This is a really exciting and rare opportunity in that we’re able to get these components from a reactor that has actually been in service, rather than simulated conditions,” Kasemer said.
Further, graduate students in the ACME Lab will have the opportunity to collaborate with scientists in world-renowned labs nationwide, strengthening their educational experience.
“This collaboration will give my students the chance to conduct research with colleagues at external universities and national laboratories, including the chance to participate in state-of-the-art experiments at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory,” Kasemer said. “It is only through these collaborations that our students can hone unique skill sets bridging experiments and computation, and I’m excited for them to gain this experience for their future careers.”
To learn more about the ACME Lab, visit their website here.