Nicolas Woolstenhulme
is a technical lead for irradiation testing at Idaho National Laboratory. He
has led the development of several irradiation tests in the Advanced Test
Reactor (ATR), Transient Reactor Test facility (TREAT), and other material test
reactors both domestic and abroad. Currently, Woolstenhulme serves at
the irradiation lead both for advanced reactor technologies in DOE’s Advanced
Fuels Campaign and irradiation capabilities development for pressurized water
and liquid sodium systems in TREAT. Prior to his current position, Woolstenhulme worked in
the Fuel Fabrication Department at INL where he researched novel
techniques for fabrication of high density advanced research reactor fuels. He
received a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Brigham Young University – Idaho.
"Irradiation performance of a U-7Mo in Al-Si matrix dispersion full-size fuel plate assembly"
Nicolas Woolstenhulme, A.B. Robinson, J.W. Nielsen, Yi Je Cho, T.A. Johsnon, J.S. Yim, Y.W. Tahk, J.M. Park,
Nuclear Engineering and Design
Vol. 416
2024
Link
"On-Going Status of KJRR Fuel (U-7Mo) Qualification"
Nicolas Woolstenhulme, D.S. Crawford, J.W. Nielsen, Y.J. choi, J.S. yim, Y.W. Tahk, J.Y. Oh, H.J. Kim, E.H. Kong, B.H. Lee, A.A. Beasley,
Vol.
[unknown]Link
In order to cope with the global shortage of Mo-99 supplies and the growing demand of neutron transmutation doping, the KJRR construction plan was launched in April 2012 to provide self-sufficiency of domestic RI demand, and to extend the Si doping capacity for the power device market growth. Through comprehensive surveillance of the in-reactor behavior of fuel, KAERI has selected a fuel meat with a U-7%Mo dispersion in an aluminum matrix with 5wt%Si for KJRR fuel. As a part of the effort of fuel licensing and qualification of the KJRR fuel, an LTA irradiation test at the ATR started from November 2015, and was successfully completed by reaching 216.6 EFPD at the end of February 2017. Together with the results of HAMP-1, which already completed irradiation and PIE, the successful irradiation of the LTA also demonstrates the fuel integrity under more rigorous conditions than the KJRR operation conditions. This paper updates the current status of the KJRR U7Mo (8 g-U/cm3) LTA irradiation and PIE plan up to date as of February 2017.
The present work correlates the quasi-static, tensile mechanical properties of additively manufactured Ti-6Al-4V extra low interstitial (ELI, Grade 23) alloy to the phase constituents, microstructure, and fracture surface characteristics that changed with post-heat treatment of stress relief (670 °C for 5 h) and hot isostatic pressing (HIP with 100 MPa at 920 °C for 2 h under an Ar atmosphere). Ti-6Al-4V ELI alloy tensile specimens in both the horizontal (i.e., X and Y) and vertical (Z) directions were produced by the laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) technique. Higher yield strength (1141 MPa), higher tensile strength (1190 MPa), but lower elongation at fracture (6.9%), along with mechanical anisotropy were observed for as-stress-relieved (ASR) samples. However, after HIP, consistent and isotropic mechanical behaviors were observed with a slight reduction in yield strength (928 MPa) and tensile strength (1003 MPa), but with a significant improvement in elongation at fracture (16.1%). Phase constituents of acicular α′ phase in ASR and lamellar α + β phases in HIP samples were observed and quantified to corroborate the reduction in strength and increase in ductility. The anisotropic variation in elongation at fracture observed for the ASR samples, particularly built in the build (Z) direction, was related to the presence of “keyhole” porosity.
