Book of abstracts of the joint EC-IAEA topical meeting on development of new structural materials for advanced fission and fusion reactor systems

Materials performance and reliability are key issues for the safety and competitiveness of future nuclear installations: Generation IV nuclear systems for increased sustainability, advanced systems for non-electrical uses of nuclear energy, partitioning and transmutation systems, as well as thermo-nuclear fusion systems. These systems will have to feature high thermal efficiency and optimized utilization of fuel combined with minimized nuclear waste. For the sustainability of the nuclear option, there is a renewed interest worldwide in new reactor systems, closed fuel cycle research and technology development, and nuclear process heat applications. This requires the development and qualification of new high temperature structural materials with improved radiation and corrosion resistance. To achieve the challenging materials performance parameters, focused research and targeted testing of new candidate materials are necessary. Recent developments regarding new classes of materials with improved microstructural features, such as fibre-reinforced ceramic composite materials, oxide dispersion strengthened steels or advanced ferritic-martensitic steels are promising since they combine good radiation resistance and corrosion properties with high-temperature strength and toughness. In view of a successful and timely implementation of design parameters, in particular for primary circuits, new structural materials have to be qualified during the next decade. To this end an international R and D effort is being undertaken. Recent progress in materials science, supported by computer modelling and advanced materials characterisation techniques, has the potential to accelerate the process of new structural materials development. The scope of the meeting is information exchange and cross-fertilisation of various disciplines, including an overview of recent status of world-wide R and D activities. A comprehensive review of the designs of fission as well as fusion reactor systems, of the innovative materials concepts presently under consideration, and of system specific structural materials aspects will be given. The key topics of the meeting are the following: - Radiation damage phenomena and modelling of material properties under irradiation; - On-going challenges in radiation materials science; - Key material parameters and operational conditions of selected reactor designs; -Microstructures and mechanical properties of nuclear structural materials; - Pathways to development of new structural materials; - Qualification of new structural materials; - Advanced microstructural probing methods. Special emphasis is given to the application of nuclear techniques in the development and qualification of new structural materials. Each of the papers in this Book of Abstracts has been indexed separately