Nuclear Materials Science (NMS)

General Objective

The general objective of the institute for Nuclear Materials Science (NMS) is to develop and assess materials behaviour in nuclear environments. The scope of the institute's activities comprises structural materials, fuels and radioisotopes. The targetted systems for this research are current nuclear installations as well as future applications of nuclear energy, currently under development.

The overall approach towards the different material challenges combines the experimental study of materials, the mechanistic understanding of the observed behaviour and its implementation in numerical simulations that enable the prediction of the behaviour of materials in a nuclear environment.

These activities aim both to safeguard our own expertise and to offer high added value services to the nuclear industry.

Strategic Priorities

Within the large field of nuclear materials, the research activities are developed along the following lines:

• The scientific/technological evaluation of the performance and life span of materials used in existing power plants. The focus of these activities is on the ageing phenomena, experienced in current generation nuclear power plants and relevant to the generation 3 plants under construction. The main activity areas are the investigation of the radiation induced embrittlement of reactor pressure vessel steel and stress corrosion cracking of internal and primary circuit components.

• The development and validation of materials for advanced fission reactor concepts (ADS-MYRRHA, GEN IV) and for fusion (ITER, DEMO). In these areas, the main focus is on the evaluation of ferritic-martensitic steels for applications in ADS, lead and sodium cooled fast reactors and fusion reactors, as well as the development and evaluation of high temperature materials for fusion applications (refractory metals) and high temperature reactors (ODS steels). The experimental qualification of the materials is supported by multiscale modelling tools, in order to be able to extrapolate the experimental results to the expected conditions in the advanced nuclear systems that are being designed. The development and validation of the numerical tools is in synergy with the efforts devoted to the studies on materials used in current reactors (see above), which have a higher degree of maturity and a larger database available.

• The qualification of evolutionary fuels for present-day reactors. These activities are focussing on the experimental characterisation of commercial fuel behaviour in normal and transient conditions, supported by validated fuel modelling codes. The know-how on fuel behaviour is extended by advanced irradiation and post irradiation tests, supported by numerical modelling efforts.

• The development and qualification of new fuels for advanced reactor concepts (research reactors – M-TRs, ADS-MYRRHA, GEN IV – lead fast reactor LFR & gas fast reactor GFR).
  In this field, activities are focussed on the development and qualification of fuels for material test reactors and ADS-LFR and gas fast reactors. The main objective of MTR developments is to qualify the fuel for new MTR's as well as to support the conversion of existing MTR's from high to low enriched fuels. For ADS, the objective is to design, specify and finally qualify the fuel for the MYRRHA ADS design. For the fast reactor designs, the objective is to valorise the know-how from light water and ADS fuels and expand the field of modelling fuel behaviour in fast reactor conditions. As a reference, uranium and mixed oxide fuels are considered; on the longer term, also thorium based fuels and minor actinide carrying fuels will enter the scope of research.

• The development of new radioisotopes for medicine and the enhanced neutron transmutation doping of Silicon. The scope of these activities is to strengthen the capabilities of the BR2 MTR within the market of industrial (silicon doping) as well as radiopharmaceutical iradiation services. The development towards new applications in radiopharmacology aims at setting up production and conditioning methods for short lived isotopes, in close collaboration with radiopharmaceutical producers.

Organisation

The NMS institute is divided into 2 scientific expert groups and 4 technical expert groups. The former groups are mainly involved in research and scientific development projects, while the latter provide services to internal and external clients and develop new testing and service facilities.

Institute Manager: Sannen Leo
Deputy Institute Manager: Van Dyck Steven