Week 17 of 2024

Three nuclear energy innovation news!

⚽ Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US) demonstrate a non-destructive identification method for pebble-bed reactors. It relies on the unique 3D distribution of TRISO particles associated with each pebble, which can be extracted through X-ray CT. The method performed with 100% accuracy over 100k arbitrarily rotated pebble, under 50 s per pebble on average. Such identification can be used to validate models predicting pebble flow behavior and burnup.

🧂 Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (US) demonstrate a technique to monitor in real-time the corrosion of materials within high-temperature flowing molten salt systems. The proposed approach is to blast stainless stell with high-energy particles, which produces radionucleides, and weld it in the test loop. The decay of radionucleides can then be monitored with gamma ray spectrometers, leveraging on their specific energy signatures to track material corrosion and transport.

🍁 AtkinsRéalis (CAN) opens a new $20m AtkinsRéalis Technology Center (ATC) in Richland, Washington state. The location is adjacent to the existing AtkinsRéalis Engineering Laboratory and the Washington State University Tri-Cities Campus. In addition to an office spaces, it features two workshop and a 1,500 m2 and 18 m bhigh-bay testing area.

👨‍🎓 Paper of the week: "Determination of the Equation of State from Nuclear Experiments and Neutron Star Observations", Nature Astronomy (2024).

👉 Data-centric approach to benchmark modelling of nuclear matter.

👇 Did you spot anything else? Let me me know!