27. Nuclear Materials — Radiation Damage and Effects in Matter

MIT 22.01 Introduction to Nuclear Engineering and Ionizing Radiation, Fall 2016
Instructor: Michael Short

Prof. Short uses all the concepts introduced thus far to introduce the study of nuclear materials and radiation damage - his field of study. The concept of ionizing radiation creating nuclear displacements, not just electron ionization, is introduced as the first event in radiation damage. The structural defects produced from these displacements are shown to cluster, move, and evolve, resulting in drastic changes to material properties. Key structural material properties and their formal definitions are introduced and demystified by watching a pair of Finnish scientists smash various items with a 50 ton hydraulic press.

License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

[Mst]

I took this course in engineering school 30 years ago. Wish I had such a good instructor back then as I have now watching this video. You can't put a price on a great teacher.

[supermanwhereareyounow]

No wonder it is one of the best institution in the world....all the lecturers are great...their enthusiasm is infectious....I hope my daughter is able to attend MIT....

[Jon.A.Scholt]

I've been watching this series of lectures and am loving it. Free lectures like this are Youtube at it's best.

[sideshowbob]

The hydraulic press channel should be required watching for all materials science students!

[kerryevans]

I am really enjoying these lectures. Thank you.

[surveysays]

It's interesting to find out what "work hardening" is. I work with work hardening materials often, and I didn't realize it was due to the stacking effect of dislocations.

[cappypyramsaudpate]

by the way, lead self anneals at room temperature which allows it to be ductile no matter how much deformation it undergoes.

[chadr]

You can do an easy experiment at the gym to experience elastic deformation. Put 3 45s on each side of the bar then press it on the flat you will notice you have to elastically deform the bar before it moves. Put another 25 on each side it deforms even more. Take the 25s off and put another 45 and a 25 on each side the bar flexes quite a lot over an inch. The effect is not linear the bar is very stiff until you get around 405 lbs then it starts flexing like soft plastic

[justinbellotti]

With the diamond. Their hardness is based on stress against the grain. So when one shatters like that it is more of a cleaving along the grain lines. That's also why it takes a pro to cut jewelry diamonds competently. I love these videos.

[FLnativethGen]

Marveling at my ability to retain all this gibberish, great instructor.

[johnolson]

Too old to go back now, but wish i would have been able to take this class and learn something from this man . He is an outstanding teacher.

[RiDankulous]

This is a super course, thank you!

Concerning toughness, durability and strength, there are different word usages but of course for the materials science definitions they could be misunderstood by lay persons. However, if I was discussing the characteristics in terms of the resilience of a material or item, I would learn the materials science definitions very carefully so I'd be on the same page as person speaking about it.

I wondered about deformation in reactor components causing some sort of failure. For example, the pebble bed reactor seems to assume there will not be deformations. I wonder if the spheres can deform to the point where they don't slide down anymore; they get stuck.

There was a reactor in Idaho that had a problem. They couldn't remove a control rod and said it is likely that it was stuck and then got unstuck with hard pulling and pulled it out way way too far, causing the death of 3 people. That sticking I wonder if had to do with deformation of an item due to design flaw or manufacturing problem.

[alpacatwoniner]

if you create too many subspace voids a portal will open and Species 8472 will invade normal space

[MarriageArezou]

Great lecture. Thank you very much for sharing it.

[Bond-dycb]

Fabulous instruction; really enjoying it. My father worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratories for over 40 years. We would have so many wonderful discussions on the subject. Thanks so much for the big share.

[patrickpatrick]

Thank you for this lecture! Very interesting.

[patinthechat]

This is the first time I have heard of material swelling due to radiation damage on the order of 20-30% is freaking nuts to me.

[SomeRandomPerson]

I think one importand thing was not mentioned. Difference between true stress/strain curve and curve from test machine. It explaining strange decreasing on curve in last part.

[DDDelgado]

I have enjoyed the lectures thus far, a few to finish the whole

[HotPinkst]

Since the radiation at the continually leaking meltdown at Fukushima is so intense robots' materials are destroyed by the radiation before the nuclear waste can be contained, if the robots had a constantly flowing foam of radiation absorbing or refracting fluid spraying all over them, could it protect the robots long enough to clear the Fukushima nuclear waste? What would you make the fluid foam out of to protect the equipment enough to successfully proceed with decontamination?