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Enhancing nuclear fuel performance under extreme environments is vital for both current and advanced reactors. The coupled effects of irradiation, phase evolution, fission product transport, and chemical reactivity at elevated temperatures drive complex changes across multiple length and time scales. Advancing this understanding is critical for developing next-generation fuel systems capable of withstanding normal, transient, and accident conditions.
This symposium will cover a wide range of fuel and cladding materials and designs, emphasizing the structural, mechanical, and chemical interactions that govern performance and reliability. Materials of interest include ceramic and metallic fuels (e.g., UO₂, UN, U₃Si₂, UZr, and UMo) and diverse cladding concepts (e.g., zircaloy and stainless steels). It will also encompass non-uranium-based systems such as thorium- and transuranic-based fuels, as well as high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuels relevant to power uprates and high burnup. Actinide science studies not directly tied to fuel performance should be submitted to the "Seaborg Institutes: Emerging Topics in Actinide Science" symposium.
The symposium will highlight recent advances in experimental characterization, in-situ and ex-situ testing, and multi-scale investigations that connect atomic-level mechanisms to engineering-scale performance. Studies on microstructural evolution, irradiation damage, fission products, and interfacial degradation are particularly encouraged. Contributions employing data-driven and machine-learning approaches for experimental interpretation or performance prediction are welcome; methodological development should be submitted to the "Modeling and AI, and Method Development in Nuclear Materials" symposium.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
• Microstructural and defect evolution in fuel systems
• High-temperature and transient phenomena in fuels
• Fuel–cladding mechanical and chemical interactions
• Accident-tolerant, HALEU, and non-uranium-based fuels.
• In-situ and ex-situ characterization of fuel systems
• Multi-scale and data-driven modeling of fuel behavior
• Fuel performance evaluation and qualification |