ICTP 2020

Radiation Damage in Nuclear Systems: from Bohr to Young

This proposed Workshop will assist Ph.D. students and early-career researchers develop a quantitative understanding of the impact of radiation damage on materials, both for existing fission and proposed fusion reactors. There is an emphasis on the conceptual progression of theoretical and experimental techniques across spatial scales from atomistic descriptions to the macroscopic behaviour of bulk material.

Directors

• Christian Hill (IAEA)
• Jean-Christophe Sublet (IAEA)
• Celine Cabet (CEA, France)
• Sabina Markelj (Jožef Stefan Institute, Slovenia)
• Gary Was (University of Michigan, USA)
• Steven Zinkle (University of Tennessee, USA)
• Wolfgang Jacob (Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP), Garching, Germany)
• Ping Zhang (Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics (IAPCM), China)

Topics

• Irradiated material: defect production and damage metrics
• Dose-rate, damage energies, atomic displacement
  • Transmutation, activation, depletion
• Neutron-induced material defect simulation
• Nuclear Kinematics
• Void swelling, post-short-term cascades
• Correlation and prediction of material behaviour under irradiation
• Paradigms for irradiation testing: accelerator simulation
• Using ion irradiation as a proxy for neutrons
  • Ion accelerators, standardised testing, interstitials
• Theoretical modelling of radiation effects
• Micro-structure and microchemistry
• Ion versus neutron irradiation within a steady state microstructure
• Multiscale modelling of structural materials for nuclear systems
• From Bohr model to Young modulus
  • Physics – Chemistry – Material science – Engineering
  • Femtometres to metres; attoseconds to days
• Plasma-material interaction
  • Erosion and surface-evolution studies
  • Surface chemistry, codeposition
• The effect of neutron and surrogate radiation on the properties of fusion-relevant materials
  • Molecular Dynamics and Kinetic Monte Carlo studies (esp. W and Fe)
  • Quantum transition state theory, path integral approaches to hydrogen and defect migration
  • Experimental techniques
  • Prospects for “advanced materials” development such as high-entropy alloys
• Hydrogen isotope deposition, trapping and permeation in fusion-relevant materials
  • Experimental studies
  • Ab initio and semi-empirical quantum mechanical approaches
  • Prospects for uncertainty quantification (UQ)