Materials Research

Research and Development to develop the scientific basis for understanding long-term environmental degradation and predicting the performance of materials in nuclear power plants. This work will provide data and methods to assess the performance of SSCs essential to safe and sustained nuclear power plant operations. R&D products will be used to inform operational limits and aging mitigation approaches for materials in nuclear power plant SSCs subject to long-term operating conditions, providing key input to both regulators and industry. The intent is to help reduce operating costs, which may be accomplished by offsetting maintenance costs using better predictive models for component lifetime, improved analysis of materials through nondestructive evaluation, reduced costs for repairs, or extended performance of plants through the selection of improved replacement materials.