Professor Edmund Tarleton, University of Oxford

Research Chairs and Senior Research Fellowships 2021-22

STEP (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production) is an ambitious programme to deliver a prototype reactor which paves the way for commercial compact reactors. The concept design will be completed by 2024, followed by detailed engineering design by 2030 and construction for operation in the 2040s. The conventional approach to qualify materials within the nuclear industry is through design codes such as ASME and RCC-MRx and requires comprehensive testing spanning the full range of material products, joints and irradiation conditions, under the full range of stress cycles and operating temperatures. Given the lack of a fusion relevant radiation facility and the limited funding and time prior to the delivery of the STEP prototype reactor, there is simply no means to follow this conventional approach, necessitating new, innovative methods using modern virtual engineering techniques. This Fellowship will apply the latest breakthroughs in materials modelling to simulate the behaviour of irradiated engineering alloys and predict irradiated component lifetimes based on a mechanistic understanding. This will enable simulation of the full range of load cases with validation from a small fraction of the testing currently mandated in the design codes. Providing engineers with a predictive toolset to support engineering design, as well as the ability to verify and calibrate models through service by periodic extraction of surveillance test samples. The latter approach successfully facilitated safety cases in the early fission industry and is the only means to enable fusion, which will once again push materials into unchartered territory.

Personal website: https://eng.ox.ac.uk/people/edmund-tarleton/

Twitter: @edtarleton