U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Post

🤔 #DidYouKnow that for the past half century, the Westinghouse Churchill R&D Center in Pennsylvania has served as a leading institution for irradiated materials testing? Churchill is the only commercial Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF) partner facility, working with industry partners such as EPRI, the PWR Owners Group, and the wider academic community for #NuclearInnovation and #NuclearResearch. The hot cells there have multifunctional capabilities including: ☑️ Mechanical testing ☑️ Corrosion testing ☑️ Microstructural characterization ☑️ Post-irradiation examination of reactor materials 📰 Learn more about Churchill's unique capabilities in the Springer Nature Journal: https://bit.ly/40IGbDm

I am thrilled to share our last article entitled"enhancing x-ray radiation protection with novel liquid silicone rubber composites: a promising alternative to lead aprons" that are published in the Nuclear Engineering and Technology journal , Clarivate ,Q1. Feel free to read our article here : https://lnkd.in/ebZd2RPx

More than 15 years ago, Algonquin College designed a Radiation Safety program with the Chalk River Labs of Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL). This has since become a two-year diploma program that is offered at the Pembroke Campus in the Ottawa Valley and attracts students from across the country. Read more about this program and the opportunities it provides in the CRPA Bulletin: https://zurl.co/EydT

Versatile Test Reactor is going to shape the future of Nuclear Energy.

The Office of Science and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) are accepting applications for new and renewal awards for research in High-Energy-Density Laboratory Plasma Science. They are making $7 M available for research into this area: https://lnkd.in/eFQJNQR8

The first French cyclotron, built at the Nuclear Chemistry Laboratory of the Collège de France, led by Frédéric Joliot, starts functioning in 1938 at SHFJ_CEA. https://lnkd.in/esDXVd4H

I keep saying I'll do more #FutureFriday posts but keep forgetting to do them.  Next week is the 2024 #AmericanNuclearSociety Winter Conference and Expo. I'll be giving a presentation entitled "Standardization of Ion Irradiation Experimental Procedures for Nuclear Materials Research". In this presentation I will talk about the international efforts to codify best practices for performing ion irradiation experiments to simulate neutron induced radiation damage into a revised ASTM International Standard (ASTM E521-23 to be specific). I look forward to engaging the #ANS community on how these experiments can help propel nulcear materials and fuels research, and accelerate qualification of new materials for advanced reactor applications. If you're at the conference, feel free to bombard me with questions about this topic.  Link to the technical session: https://lnkd.in/ePbP_S2z #ANS #Orlando #AmericanNuclearSociety #nuclearengineering #ionirradiation #ionbeams #nuclearpower

While I may be mistaken, I think my field of radiation effects in materials started because of the graphite reactor. A short passage in an update from Eugene Wigner in 1946  (https://lnkd.in/eXK5yity, Section 3) reads as follows.  "Clearly, the collision of neutrons with the atoms of any substance placed into the pile will cause displacements of these atoms.  ... The matter has great scientific interest because pile irradiation should permit the artificial formation of displacements in definite numbers and a study of the effect of these on thermal and electrical conductivity, tensile strength, ductility, etc. as demanded by theory."  Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Many radiation effects studies still try to understand the results of displacement damage, temperature, and neutron induced transmutation on the engineering properties of a material. Having this rich history at ORNL is inspiring and the historical landmark that is the graphite reactor building is a great place to reflect and think about the giant shoulders we stand upon. One of the many reasons I enjoy being part of ORNL.  #ORNL80 #radiationeffects #history #Wigner #nuclearmaterials #graphitereactor #graphitepile

Whoever wins the 2024 presidential election will face heightened nuclear geopolitics, deadlines on nuclear deals with Russia and Iran and decisions on a $2-trillion weapons-modernization effort https://trib.al/qu9yd7m This is part of a series on what the 2024 presidential election means for science, health and the environment. You can read more expert analysis from our editors here: https://trib.al/H6cVsrL

Today I gave a lecture on enrichment cascade calculations for a post-graduate course on the "Nuclear Fuel Cycle", PHYS8205 (https://lnkd.in/gmEJm5Jy) in the School of Nuclear Physics at The Australian National University. My contribution related to how to use a minimal set of information to work out realistic operational paramaters for enrichment cascades.