A Review of Irradiation Damage and Effects in α-Uranium.

Understanding irradiation damage and effects in α-uranium (α-U) is critical to modeling the behavior of U-based metallic fuels. The aim of this review is to address the renewed interest in U-based metallic fuels by examining the state-of-the-art knowledge associated with the effect of irradiation on the microstructure, dimensional changes, and properties of α-U. We critically review the research progress on irradiation-induced growth and swelling, the enhancement of plastic flow and superplasticity by irradiation, and the effect of irradiation on thermal and electrical properties of α-U.

Bringing nuclear materials discovery and qualification into the 21 century.

Time horizons for nuclear materials development and qualification must be shortened to realize future nuclear energy concepts. Inspired by the Materials Genome Initiative, we present an integrated approach to materials discovery and qualification to insert new materials into service.

PFHub: The Phase-Field Community Hub.

Scientific communities struggle with the challenge of effectively and efficiently sharing content and data. An online portal provides a valuable space for scientific communities to discuss challenges and collate scientific results. Examples of such portals include the Micromagnetic Modeling Group (μMAG [1]), the Interatomic Potentials Repository (IPR [2, 3]) and on a larger scale the NIH Genetic Sequence Database (GenBank [4]).

Topological phase transformations and intrinsic size effects in ferroelectric nanoparticles.

Composite materials comprised of ferroelectric nanoparticles in a dielectric matrix are being actively investigated for a variety of functional properties attractive for a wide range of novel electronic and energy harvesting devices. However, the dependence of these functionalities on shapes, sizes, orientation and mutual arrangement of ferroelectric particles is currently not fully understood. In this study, we utilize a time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau approach combined with coupled-physics finite-element-method based simulations to elucidate the behavior of polarization in isolated spherical PbTiO or BaTiO nanoparticles embedded in a dielectric medium, including air.