Materials Science
Date:
08/01/2018
MSI PI Jia-Liang Le, an associate professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering, will begin research into a new material that may provide better protection in nuclear power plants. The material, silicon carbide matrix composite, has shown promise as a cladding material to surround fuel rods and shield them from the coolant water. Preliminary studies have shown that this material could be a better barrier than zirconium alloy, which is currently used.
An article about this research appears on the OVPR’s Inquiry blog: Testing More Reliable Materials for Nuclear Energy.
Professor Le uses MSI resources to develop multiscale computational models to investigate impact resistance in quasibrittle materials.