Innovative Structural Materials for Fission and Fusion

INNUMAT aims to develop innovative structural materials for nuclear applications and put them on track towards qualification for fission lead-cooled and molten salt fast reactors as well as fusion DEMO.

High entropy alloys (HEAs), a new class of materials with a vast development potential and very promising properties, as well as alumina forming austenitic (AFA) steels, already identified as prospective structural materials for Gen IV and Small Modular Reactors, are in the main focus in which advanced material solutions are considered as well, in particular weld overlay and coated 15-15Ti for lead-cooled fast reactors, among others MYRRHA and ALFRED, and coated EUROFER and advanced oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) steel for fusion DEMO.

Some of these structural materials are of potential applicability also outside the nuclear field, e.g. in concentrated solar power and/or in H2 confinement.

The project is thus cross-cutting because of the target applications as well as because of the accelerated methodologies for materials discovery, screening and qualification that it pursues, applied at different technology readiness levels (TRLs).The differences in TRL, application conditions and requirements of the considered materials result in different objectives and hence different research tracks through the project with even different efforts.

Common goal is to rapidly increase the TRL for the desired nuclear applications towards requirements of corrosion resistance, high temperature strength, thermal stability and irradiation tolerance, which are not met by current structural materials.

Therefore, computational and experimental high throughput material screening methods will be applied and roadmaps for accelerated qualification will be established paving a fast way to more efficient safe sustainable nuclear energy systems with considerable contribution to the overall mission of developing economic energy systems with reduced/zero CO2 emissions.