A 3 years Post doctoral position at Wisconsin University (USA, 1.5 years) and CEA (France, 1.5 years): corrosion in molten salts for Energy processes
Contact: Laure Martinelli (Contact) Adrien Couet (Contact)
The accelerated development of materials is a major challenge for all industries, and corrosion resistance is particularly important for resources saving. The project aims to estimate the resistance to irradiation (heavy ions) and corrosion of FeNiMoCr alloys in a chloride salt, for use in molten-salt nuclear reactors.
The University of Wisconsin has widely demonstrated its expertise in the accelerated development of materials [1] for fluoride and chloride molten salt reactors [2-3]. In this project, dozens of samples of model quaternary FeNiMoCr alloys will be synthesised by additive manufacturing at the University of Wisconsin, varying the composition so as to map the entire compositional tetrahedron as closely as possible. These samples will then be irradiated with Ni ions at the University of Wisconsin and corroded (before and after irradiation) at the University of Wisconsin and at CEA Saclay (near Paris) to determine the effect of irradiation on the corrosion of these materials. The corrosion tests at CEA and the University of Wisconsin will cover the entire composition spectrum of FeNiMoCr alloys, as well as a NiCr grade corroded in a wide range of salt chemistry. The aim of these cross-experiments is, on the one hand, to obtain in a very short time (3 years) a large corrosion and irradiation database on FeNiMoCr alloys and, on the other hand, to screen the effect of a wide range of salt compositions on a model NiCr alloy. To achieve this, a single post-doctoral fellow would start with 1.5 years of corrosion and irradiation work at the University of Wisconsin and then spend 1.5 years at the CEA.
References :
[1] A. Couet, Integrated high-throughput research in extreme environments targeted toward nuclear structural materials discovery, Journal of Nuclear Materials, 559, 2022, 153425
[2] M. Moorehead, P. Nelaturu, M. Elbakhshwan, C. Parkin, C. Zhang, K. Sridharan, D.J. Thoma, A. Couet, High-throughput ion irradiation of additively manufactured compositionally complex alloys, Journal of Nuclear Materials, 547, 2021, 152782
[3] Y. Wang, K. Sridharan, A. Couet, Method for identification of redox control parameters for corrosion mitigation in molten fluoride salts, Journal of Nuclear Materials, 543, 2021, 152624