Chinthaka Silva

Profile Information
Name
Dr. Chinthaka Silva
Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Position
Senior Materials Scientist
h-Index
24
ORCID
0000-0003-4637-6030
Biography
<p>I was graduated from University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2009 from a newly started Radiochemistry program. My PhD thesis was on solid-state synthesis and characterization of uranium, thorium, and neptunium nitrides and mixed oxides. Following graduation, I completed his post doctorate at ORNL in the nuclear fuel group, performing work on uranium nitride/carbide microparticle synthesis and characterization and supporting AGR program. I then joined as a Research Scientist with the Materials Science group at ORNL and had the opportunity to work on pre- and post-irradiation studies of a number of zirconium- and iron-based structural materials and irradiation studies of nuclear reactor concrete aggregates. I also have some experience on synthesis and characterization of fluorides, chlorides, and carbides of uranium. My specialties are synthesis and fabrication of nuclear fuel and structural materials, and materials characterization using X-ray techniques, such as powder diffractometry, radiography/tomography, and electron microscopy (SEM and TEM). I also worked with the nuclear chemistry group at LLNL for close to three years before he joined PNNL. At PNNL, I am supporting the work on evaluation of structural materials for next generation commercial nuclear reactors (DOE AMMT programs).</p>
Expertise
Additive Manufacturing, Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR), EBSD, Post-Irradiation Examination (PIE), Selective Laser Melting (SLM), SEM, Stainless Steel, Uranium Carbide, Uranium Nitride (UN), Uranium Oxycarbide, X-Ray Diffraction (XRD)