Britain and the US have jointly succeeded in building fabricated test capsules of metal alloys and graphite for use in the advanced nuclear reactors of future.

The project is aimed at the two countries collaborating to build resources which can help advance civilian nuclear energy technologies. 

The capsules fabricated by the teams will now undergo irradiation testing sometime later this year at the Idaho National Laboratory (IDL) in the US. 

Earlier, the experimental design for the capsules had been finalised at INL, this was followed by the UK research team assembling the eight capsules at the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) Culham Campus in Abingdon. 

Close-up of capsule developed by the US and UK research teams. Image: Office of Nuclear Energy/US.

What are the capsules made of?

According to a press release by the Office of Nuclear Energy in US, the capsules are comprised of 578 samples of structural materials including advanced steel and various forms of graphite.   

The research teams from both the countries will try to understand how each sample responds to neutron irradiation and high temperatures to judge their potential use in advanced nuclear reactors.

This also includes the possibility of them being used in high-temperature gas cooled reactors which are being developed and deployed by both countries.  

At INL, they will be loaded into its Advanced Test Reactor – which is the world’s highest power test reactor. There it will be tested at temperatures of up to 1,382 degrees Fahrenheit (750 degrees Celsius) to mimic the conditions in an advanced reactor.  

After testing, the capsules will be disassembled at the lab’s Hot Fuel Examination Facility to analyse how the materials performed.

Following this, the materials will be made available to the public for examination the NSUF’s Material Library. The Material Library is an open archive of over 9,000 irradiated nuclear fuel and material samples in the US. 

US-UK joint efforts for advanced nuclear fusion reactors

The research teams from the US and UK are working on this project to help improve the nuclear reactor technology for civilian use. 

The project is a joint effort between the US Department of Energy’s Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF) and its counterpart in the UK, the National Nuclear User Facility (NNUF), as part of a bilateral cooperative action plan to foster nuclear energy research and resource sharing between the two countries. It also aims to share nuclear energy user facility resources for enhanced energy technology.

“NSUF facilitated US and UK working groups to select materials important for nuclear energy in both countries,” said NSUF director Brenden Heidrich.

“The project is an important example of how we can effectively work with and share resources with an international partner to more efficiently answer questions about advanced materials.”   

“The U.S. and UK teams have established a genuine, warm working friendship, and to have completed this first part of the joint irradiation campaign so efficiently is a real achievement for all involved,” added the NNUF management group’s chair Chris Grovenor.  

The project also includes contributions from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Purdue University, Westinghouse, the National Nuclear Laboratory, University of Manchester, University of Oxford, and University of Sheffield.