Call for Papers

Please contact the symposium organizers with questions.

The development of new nuclear reactors and the operation of existing reactors beyond their standard operating envelopes are critical to solving a variety of challenges, including the provision of large quantities of clean energy and the reliable generation of electricity or heat in remote terrestrial or extra-terrestrial environments. Understanding the response of nuclear materials under extreme conditions will support the qualification of Zircaloy-UO₂ fuel beyond current burnup limits and the development of advanced fuels, including high thermal conductivity ceramics, fuels containing Pu and/or minor actinides, molten salts, liquid metals and cladding materials, such as SiC-SiC and novel alloys. The response of these materials under extreme temperature, irradiation and chemical conditions is controlled by complex phenomena that span a large range of phase space, length scales and time scales. The combination of mechanistic models (implemented at the engineering, meso-, and atomic scales) with a wide variety of advanced experimental techniques is poised to provide the tools necessary to accelerate the deployment of new and innovative nuclear fuel technology. Modeling and experimental integration through uncertainty quantification and validation, as well as scale bridging and machine learning, are expected to play a crucial role.

Topics will include:

• Traditional fuel and cladding materials beyond standard operating conditions, e.g., high burnup or temperatures
• Advanced fuel materials: doped and mixed oxides, UN, UC, metal fuel, TRISO kernels, molten salts
• Advanced cladding materials: Fe-based alloys, SiC and SiC-SiC composites, TRISO particles
• Fuel fragmentation, pulverization, relocation and dispersal
• Fuel-cladding mechanical and chemical interactions
• Advanced PIE and characterization of irradiated nuclear fuel
• Accelerated burnup tests and ion-beam irradiations
• Fuel and cladding performance simulations at the engineering, meso-, and atomic scales
• Machine learning, surrogate models, physics-based fuel performance codes and scale bridging
• Separate-effects tests and characterization of fuel properties
• Uncertainty quantification and experimental-modeling validation

Invited Speakers (tentative):

• Larry Aagesen (Idaho National Laboratory, USA)
• Denise Adorno-Lopez (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA)
• Assel Aitkaliyeva (University of Florida, USA)
• Johann Bouchet (Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives Cadarache, France)
• Laurent Capolungo (Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA)
• Kevin Field (University of Michigan, USA)
• Mirco Große (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany)
• Christopher Matthews (Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA)
• Simon Middleburgh (Bangor University, United Kingdom)
• Hiroki Nakamura (Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Japan)
• Andrew Nelson (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA)
• Par Olsson (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden)
• Markus Piro (Ontario Tech University, Canada)
• Davide Pizzocri (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)
• Catherine Sabathier (Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives Cadarache, France)
• Martin Sevecek (Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic)
• Anna Smith (Delft University of Technology, Netherlands)

Symposium Organizers