Advances in the Manufacture and Performance of Nuclear Metallic Materials

A special issue of Metals (ISSN 2075-4701).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2025 | Viewed by 355

Special Issue Editor

Department of Nuclear Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China
Interests: nuclear fuel; fuel cladding; nuclear wasteform; material characterization
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The rapid increase in nuclear energy consumption as well as the evolution of Gen-IV nuclear reactor technologies remain noticeable trends and evident factors in the creation of new materials and technologies. Advances in the application of nuclear metal alloys and metallic fuels, including the development and characterization of materials used or those with the potential to be used in advanced nuclear reactor cores, define the scope of this Special Issue. From the onset, the development of metallic fuel or structural materials for nuclear reactors has been of great significance for the safety and reliability of nuclear power plants. Reactors are designed to be used for several dozens of years in extreme core environments. Therefore, designing alloys to withstand harsh conditions, such as high temperature or strong irradiation, in the reactor core is a fundamental challenge for materials scientists. For the aforementioned reasons, the fabrication, characterization, and theoretical understanding of advanced nuclear fuels and structural materials, specifically in terms of their thermo-mechanical properties, the synergistic effect of temperature, corrosion, and irradiation, or their in-pile performance, are critical to the future application of advanced superalloys in nuclear systems.

For this Special Issue, we welcome articles that focus on the fabrication, characterization, and theoretical study of metallic fuel, advanced nuclear fuel cladding, and structural alloys in the field of advanced nuclear systems. The innovative study of the additive manufacturing of superalloys for nuclear applications and the use of multiscale research methods that bridge microstructure and properties are of particular interest.

Dr. Kun Yang
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • nuclear fuel
  • structural alloys
  • structural characterization
  • fabrication process
  • in-pile performance
  • extreme environment
  • irradiation
  • corrosion

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

12 pages, 1005 KiB  
Article
Density Functional Theory-Based Study of UC2 and Cr-Doped UO2
by Barbara Szpunar, Jayangani I. Ranasinghe and Jerzy A. Szpunar
Metals 2025, 15(7), 727; https://doi.org/10.3390/met15070727 - 29 Jun 2025
Viewed by 252
Abstract
A density functional theory-based study of UC2 and Cr-doped UO2 using the phono3py and VASP computational simulation packages is presented. Furthermore, the temperature-dependent thermal conductivities are compared to the traditional urania fuel. Doping of urania with Cr allows for improved fission [...] Read more.
A density functional theory-based study of UC2 and Cr-doped UO2 using the phono3py and VASP computational simulation packages is presented. Furthermore, the temperature-dependent thermal conductivities are compared to the traditional urania fuel. Doping of urania with Cr allows for improved fission gas retention, reducing the fission gas release and lowering the oxidation rate of UO2. The thermal conductivity calculated using the random alloy method with one U atom replaced by Cr in a supercell (CrU31O64) shows a slight decrease; however, this may be compensated for by larger grain sizes in the presence of Cr. The reduction of thermal conductivity for the 0.61 wt.% Cr substation in urania is presented. Investigated here, the UC2 metallic high-temperature fcc phase looks promising due to additional electronic contribution to conductivity. Furthermore, we found that the temperature-dependent phonon-assisted thermal conductivities for UC2 and UO2 are very similar. The elastic properties of UC2 were also evaluated and compared with UO2. The presented analysis provides information for further improvement of the design of nuclear fuels. Full article
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