Safer nuclear power stations
Tue, 06 Nov 2012 15:52:00 GMT
Huddersfield scientists seek to ensure nuclear power stations are catastrophe-proof
The project was spurred by the damage caused to the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, which was hit by a tsunami in March 2011. Now it has gained added urgency after the super storm named Sandy hit the U.S. eastern seaboard and resulted in nuclear stations being placed on high alert.
pictured above: the Indian Point power plant, Hudson River, New York
“The U.S. authorities want to make their nuclear reactors as accident-tolerant as possible,” says Professor Steve Donnelly, of the University of Huddersfield. He will make a key contribution to the research project by using the facility known as MIAMI in order to simulate the effects of radiation damage on coatings that will be applied to the zirconium cladding tubes that contain nuclear fuel in U.S. reactors.
MIAMI – which stands for Microscope and Ion Accelerators for Materials Investigation – was custom-designed by Professor Donnelly, who heads the University of Huddersfield’s Electron Microscopy and Materials Analysis Research Group. It uses ion beams to simulate the effects of neutron bombardment on potential reactor materials avoiding the build-up of radioactivity that can occur when neutrons are used.
“At the end of the project, depending on how the coatings have performed with the ions, the coatings will be tested with neutrons by the U.S. partners,” said Professor Donnelly, who is Dean of the University’s School of Computing and Engineering.
His latest project began when the U.S. Department of Energy announced $13 million in grants so that a network of universities could take part in research to develop and test the new ceramic cladding. Elements of the project are being undertaken by American universities that include Tennessee, Pennsylvania State, Colorado and Michigan.
The University's Professor Stephen Donnelly (centre) is pictured above at the opening of MIAMI with former Astronomer Royal Professor Sir Arnold Wolfendale (left), a former colleague of Stephen, and Professor Sir Peter Knight (right), who chairs the University's EPSRC Centre Steering Committee.
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