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The growing imperative of energy security, coupled with the rising global demand driven by artificial intelligence and sustained economic growth, underscores the need for nuclear energy systems with higher efficiency and resilience. Achieving this requires not only advancing reactor technologies but also developing a deeper understanding of how materials degrade under the coupled extremes present in nuclear environments. In both fission and fusion systems, materials are subjected to high temperatures, corrosive chemistries, and most critically, intense irradiation damage that drives defect production, segregation, and microstructural evolution. These effects rarely act independently, as irradiation can strongly couple with stress and chemical processes, leading to non-linear and accelerated (or in some cases, decelerated) degradation pathways that remain poorly understood.
Addressing these challenges demands a comprehensive mechanistic understanding rather than a singular focus on new materials design. This symposium emphasizes degradation mechanisms and experimental or computational approaches to coupled extremes rather than alloy design or new material development. Recent advances in in-situ irradiation and corrosion studies, advanced characterization, and supporting modeling approaches provide powerful avenues to probe the complex interplay between irradiation damage and coupled environmental effects.
This symposium will focus on the science of degradation, particularly irradiation damage and its coupling with other extremes, bringing together experimental, computational, and theoretical perspectives. The goal is to advance our understanding of degradation mechanisms in complex environments and lay the groundwork for predicting and ultimately mitigating failure in nuclear materials.
Submissions focused on new alloy development or material fabrication should be directed to the “Developments in Advanced Nuclear Structural Materials” symposium.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
• Coupling and interplay of various forms of radiation exposure – including ion, neutron, photon, electron, and plasma irradiation – with corrosion, mechanical stress, and/or other stimuli on materials degradation.
• Development of novel experimental techniques and modeling frameworks to interrogate coupled extreme environments.
• Fundamental mechanisms of damage and damage tolerance under radiation and/or other environmental effects.
• Experimental, modeling, and combined experimental-modeling studies are of interest. |