Prof. Brent Heuser leads a multiple university and national laboratory effort to conduct extensive experimental and computational activities to investigate the effect of light water nuclear reactor environments on iron and nickel-based alloys. This research, under the U.S. Department of Energy Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program, could lead to material improvements that support extending the life of nuclear generation plants.
Researchers from Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and the University of Michigan have joined Heuser, of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering at Illinois, in the project, “Experimental and Computational Studies of Stress Corrosion Cracking of Alloys 308/309 and 81/82 Weldments in Corrosive and Radiation Environment.”
Heuser and the team have gained an $800,000 Nuclear Energy University Programs (NEUP) grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to conduct their studies. Heuser also has secured a second NEUP grant of $311,000 to establish in his laboratory a recirculating loop autoclave in which he can expose material samples to an environment simulating a LWR.
“We can control water chemistry, temperature, pressure and applied load. Our first use will be to support our new program on LWR weldments,” he said. The recirculating loop autoclave will be the first of this kind on the Urbana campus.
Heuser will be working with Benjamin Spencer and Sebastien Teysseyre of INL, Xianming Bai of Virginia Tech, and Gary Was of the University of Michigan. Weldments will be provided by the Electric Power Research Institute.