COVER STORY | MATERIALS RESEARCH
could also be assessed using the model: “Adding a new element would be a future aspect of improvement for this current framework,” says Miao. Another likely avenue for further research is the use of AI in assessing a large data set, although Miao is clear that their approach is not using AI or machine learning to derive results currently. “So far, we haven’t used AI, but that’s a potential for the future because we developed our framework based on a US Department of Energy and Office of Nuclear Energy code. It is AI ready and it can use AI in the future but our data is not large enough to give us a prominent benefit when using AI, but in the future when the database grows AI is possible”. As a two-year project the initial Argonne National
Laboratory-directed R&D programme is now close to completion, but the team are actively approaching government programmes as well as industry vendors to try to continue to develop this approach and add more details to the database. The team will also file a patent for the new coating material and is currently seeking more funding to further investigate its properties. “In the future, we’re trying to approach not only
Above: Nickel-based alloys like Inconel are primarily chosen for their resistance to corrosion rather than for qualities like strength and ductility
Irradiation Station] AMIS as an accelerated way to see the
radiation resistance of our coating,” says Miao. The prime national facility for nuclear structure research,
ATLAS is the world’s first superconducting linear accelerator for heavy ions at energies in the vicinity of the Coulomb barrier while the AMIS uses low-energy ion beams to emulate material damage in nuclear reactors. Damage that could take years in a reactor environment could in principle be reproduced in few days using the ion accelerator. “All that information is also used to inform the model so that with the existing knowledge from this experiment we can further accelerate the future optimisation and the qualification for those coatings,” says Miao.
Commercial coatings While the goal of the research is to reduce the volume of nickel required, the programme also focuses on costs, as Miao explains: “The project’s main focus is trying to develop an evaluation framework that should be extendable to different coatings and different reactor types. It is a multi- phase model as it has an experimental part and it has also a cost-effectiveness analysis part. When we reduce the reliance on nickel, we also reduce the cost because nickel is expensive but depositing a coating is also more expensive than not having a coating so we want to consider both aspects to make sure the final solution would still be profitable depending on the different coating deposition process such as vapor deposition or electroplating. We’re trying to consider the cost at the very beginning to make sure that whatever solution we provide would still be beneficial.” The experimental phases are also feeding back into
the data set to make an improved framework for further research. In the future, coatings with different compositions
24 | November 2024 |
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government programmes to obtain further funding, we’re also trying to approach private sector nuclear industry vendors to use our tool so that when we have an actual advanced reactor model, which is developed either by a government agency or by a private sector company, we can replace the concept model with the actual model people are trying to develop. It’s a different model and will give you a different operating condition, but we can still use the existing data and the framework to test whether the coating solution will still perform within the conditions found in the actual reactor design. If yes, that’s good news. If not, we still have this tool set to further optimise and find a new solution for the specific reactor conditions,” says Miao, adding: “We already have a demonstration case to identify a coating solution for the concept molten salt reactor, but we might also have different reactor designs like lead-cooled designs”.
Although mainly multi-physics based, the framework
tool that has been developed is also likely to serve future regulatory appraisals too by combining different elements and also connect it with experimental data and the cost- effectiveness analysis. Says Miao: “We’re trying to use those tools, combine them and use them to establish the framework. Then you take that whole, real-world model of an existing actual reactor design and that’s what goes to the NRC where they assess that for safety, repeatability and all those other characteristics that they are interested in.” Using existing approaches, trying to quantify new
materials for reactors can take decades, this framework model is therefore expected to shorten this process by establishing that a coating meets the quite narrow requirements of reactor conditions already and so a relatively short and truncated testing programme is sufficient to validate the material. Miao concludes: “We wanted a demonstration case to show our potential users that we have a framework that already works for one solution, the molten salt reactor and coating. From the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project point of view, we’re wrapping it up, but for the framework, as well as the coating we have identified, we’re trying to secure more funding to continue developing it”. ■
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