Ukaea Materials Summer Placement 2024

**Overview of Responsibilities**:
This role requires employees to **complete an online Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS)**, including The Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) checks for criminal convictions.

**The Role**:High Throughput Analysis of Irradiation Hardening in Reduced Activation Ferritic-Martensitic Steels for Future Fusion Applications.

Are you looking for an exciting opportunity to make a difference? Join our team and contribute to the future of fusion energy.

Reduced activation ferritic-martensitic (RAFM) steels are a recent class of radiation-resistant steels designed to be used as the structural components of power-producing fusion reactors. Their goal is to provide high-temperature strength and creep resistance while consisting only of alloying elements that do not produce high-level radioactive waste after use. The current generation of RAFM steels are limited to operating temperatures below 550°C, after which the alloys are susceptible to grain boundary unpinning, phase instability and a loss in creep strength. This is attributed to the coarsening of the M23C6 precipitates at high temperature. Advanced RAFM steels, or ARAFM steels, are therefore being developed to operate above 550°C and increase the thermodynamic efficiency of the power plant. The key consortium within the UK in this area is operating within the NEURONE programme, which seeks to combine an optimised alloy chemistry with refinements in the thermomechanical treatment (TMT) of the alloy in order to produce a microstructure strengthened by a fine dispersion of metastable, radiation-resistant MX-type precipitates.

There exists already a very large library of materials within NEURONE, due to the rapid combinatorial effects of alloy chemistry, TMT, irradiating species, irradiation temperature, and irradiation dose. It is therefore critical to develop robust methodologies to rapidly screen alloys for changes in key mechanical properties - hardness, yield strength, hardenability, creep resistance - as a function of these effects.

This project will support our efforts in developing a high-throughput, nanoindentation-based approach to assess the changes in mechanical properties after (ion) irradiation. Indentation tests using a wide range of indenter geometries and loading profiles will be refined and applied to our library of (non-active) irradiated samples in order to target the specific properties of interest. Post-test electron-microscopy characterisation to understand how deformation is accommodated within the microstructure will also be performed in support of knowledge-based materials design strategies.

This role is part of the Royce Summer Placement Scheme.
- Salary
£11,44 per hour
- View benefits
- Programme
CENTRALISED- Department
Summer Placement Scheme Generic- Discipline
Science- Site Location
UKAEA Culham, Oxfordshire- Type of Employment
Full-time**Qualifications**:
**Essential Requirements**:

- To be considered you will need to be working towards a relevant degree and will be required to have the right to work in the UK.

**Additional Information**: