Sam Bell

Sam Bell is a nuclear materials scientist with five years of experience evaluating reactor materials in extreme environments at a national laboratory. Competencies include creep and fatigue behavior, fuel system performance, reactor safety, material degradation, high temperature material compatibility, aqueous corrosion, and mechanical testing/evaluation. He completed his Ph.D. under Dr. Steven Zinkle at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville while working at in the Corrosion Science and Technology group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After graduating, he was brought on as a research associate into the same group where he is continuing to explore material mechanical performance and chemical compatibility under extreme environments. Current research interests include fuel system response to accident and off-normal scenarios, particularly the thermomechanical response of cladding materials to transient heating and dynamic loading. Other interests include novel use of modern in-situ strain techniques to better understand the relationship between microstructure and performance for additively manufactured components.