Radiation-Damage Robust, Engineered, Self-repairing Meso-Materials

摘要

Nuclear power is one of the most compact, long lasting and might be the most safe and environmentally friendly energy source if it might be done right, by achieving the harmony between the nuclear reactions inside and the material structure these reactions took place. The structural materials used inside a nuclear power source, mainly stainless steel, zircalloy, etc., are suffering the radiation damage, and achieving high burnup factors, or near perfect burning is practically impossible using the present metallic alloys, due to safety reasons. Producing robust materials with micro-structure shape memory, like SiN, Ti, composites, etc., whose properties to be constant with neutron fluence, or dose after impaired by radiation damage, come back to the initial structure and recover, process also known as self-repairing mechanism. The application of these materials in nuclear reactors will make possible the increase of reactor lifetime by a factor of 5, allowing burnup factors up to 50% based on breed and burn technology, reducing the need for fuel reprocessing, and may have good applications in space technology. Good understanding of these processes involved in self-repairing, may be applied to electronic devices for space and radioactive environment, and many other applications.