Hattar Spearheads University of Tennessee Involvement in Two ARPA-E Projects
Khalid Hattar, the director of the Tennessee Ion Beam Materials Laboratory and associate professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of Tennsee, Knoxville, is part of two Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) awards of more than $2 million that focus on plasma-facing surface relationships for fusion energy systems.
The funding is part of the Creating Hardened And Durable fusion first Wall Incorporating Centralized Knowledge (CHADWICK) program through the U.S Department of Energy. The program is focused on researching and developing new, advanced materials and manufacturing techniques to enhance the durability of the "first wall" in a fusion power plant. The first wall is the critical armor that surrounds the fusion reactor's core plasma.
Hattar's group is collaborating with the University of Kentucky for a project that is focused on creating a surface right at the plasma interface that can withstand extremely high temperature, and with the Stony Brook University on another project that is focused more on the sub plasma-facing surface and creating channels that supply coolant to that region to draw heat away from it.
For both proposals, UT will be doing the testing and selection of materials and the design development. UT-ORNL Governor's Chair Professors Brian Wirth and Steve Zinkle will be involved with the Stony Brook project, along with graduate student Logan Howard and post-doc Elijah Davis.
"There's a lot of materials challenges that have never really been addressed and these projects are trying to address that issue," Hattar said. "In the Kentucky one, we are trying to alloy tungsten to get a little bit better strength, radiation, and sustainability. On the Stony Brook one, it's can we cool it down so that it actually acts like normal tungsten, not like tungsten about to melt."
Pathways for Commercialization
The project led by Stony Brook received $2.5 million in funding and includes UT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Sandia National Laboratories.
The group is trying to increase the ductility, thermal conductivity, and irradiation resistance of ceramic materials through second phase additives into low activation ultra-high-temperature ceramics (UHTC). In the past, ceramic materials have not been seriously considered for fusion power applications because of their nature and rapid loss in thermal conductivity under irradiation.
Their goal is to develop more relevant ceramic materials for use as fusion first wall armor under excessive temperature and irradiation damage
The project led by the University of Kentucky received $2.3 million in funding and includes UT, University of Virginia, University of New Mexico, and Sandia National Laboratories.
Currently, no materials exist with that level of endurance that would make fusion power plants commercially viable. This project will focus on developing advanced composite materials for use in high-radiation environments.
Researchers will be working to make special metal mixtures called tungsten alloys better by changing how they are made. They will fill them with ceramic materials that can carry heat well. To select the best materials, the researchers will use machine-learning driven modeling that will help test and improve how the materials work together.
The end goal of the project is to have a large-scale bulk composite material that meets target performance metrics for operation in a fusion environment and creates a specific pathway for commercialization.
"Can you create a region in the surface that is a nano-structured composite material that has unique properties that allows it to survive the radiation damage? That is our goal," Hattar said. "We're trying to take the nanoporous structuring and start looking at how these nanoporous structures can absorb the radiation damage and minimize the helium swelling in the material."
Provided by University of Tennessee at Knoxville
