The Use of Smart Materials Technologies in Radiation Environment and Nuclear Industry

Application of smart materials technology in nuclear industry offer new opportunities in this industrial sector for safety enhancement, reduced personal exposure, life-cycle cost reduction, and performance improvement. However, the radiation environments associated with nuclear operations represent a unique challenge to the testing, qualification and use of smart materials. The present study assesses the physical limitations of smart materials applications to nuclear industry and identifies areas of where such technologies could be reliably used. In our investigation, we considered a spectrum of smart materials technologies and a variety of irradiation environments. A literature survey to identify prior experimental data related to irradiation effects on smart-materials showed significant irradiation induced alterations in performance. However, the available database was limited and additional tests will be required before smart materials technologies can be introduced in most radiation environments. This paper summarizes a test program that was developed for the Accelerator Production of Tritium project. This program was designed to identify specific irradiation areas where the application of smart materials technologies is practical.