SCORPION (SiC Composite Claddings: LWR Performance Optimisation for Nominal and Accidental Conditions)

2011年的福岛第一核电站事件证明了加强核能安全的必要性，成为过去十年来全球对事故容忍燃料(ATF)投资的主要推动力。替代用于轻水反应堆(LWR)的标准锆基合金(Zircaloy)燃料包壳材料的候选ATF包壳材料概念必须在额定运行、高温瞬变(&lt；1200°C)和事故(&gt；1200°C)条件下优于商用锆包覆材料。碳化硅/碳化硅复合材料是一种革命性的ATF覆层材料概念，具有固有的耐火性、伪延性和在失去冷却剂的情况下缺乏加速氧化的特点。由于其在满足ATF覆层应用的严格性能要求方面的独特潜力，碳化硅/碳化硅复合材料已经在全球范围内获得了巨大的投资。尽管有这些投资，所有最先进的碳化硅/碳化硅复合覆层材料概念在进行前瞻性部署之前仍必须克服固有的缺陷。两个重要的缺点是它们与冷却剂(水和蒸汽)的不相容，以及在额定运行期间辐射引起的膨胀的早期饱和(&lt；2 dpa)。蝎子致力于通过在纳米尺度上量身定做高度创新的材料，从根本上改善碳化硅/碳化硅复合燃料包层的性能，以限制水热腐蚀和辐射膨胀，同时还修改纤维/基质界面，以在辐照和高温氧化环境下获得更好的稳定性。Socpion是ATF在欧洲、美国和日本之间以应用为导向的国际合作，它结合了多学科的科学卓越、利益相关者的专业知识和尖端制造方法，以生产概念验证碳化硅/碳化硅复合覆层材料，并具有针对第二代/第三代轻水堆服务环境的根本优化的性能。

The Fukushima Daiichi event in 2011 demonstrated the need for enhanced nuclear energy safety, becoming a major driving force for global investments in accident-tolerant fuels (ATFs) over the past decade. Candidate ATF cladding material concepts that are being developed in replacement of the standard zirconium-based alloy (zircaloy) fuel cladding materials used in light water reactors(LWRs) must outperform commercial zircaloys under nominal operation, high-temperature transient (<1200°C) and accident (>1200°C) conditions. SiC/SiC composites are a rather revolutionary ATF cladding material concept exhibiting inherent refractoriness, pseudoductility,and a lack of accelerated oxidation during a loss-of-coolant scenario. Due to their unique potential in meeting the stringent property requirements of the ATF cladding application, SiC/SiC composites have already claimed large global investments. Despite these investments, all state-of-the-art variants of the SiC/SiC composite cladding material concept must still overcome inherent shortcomings prior to their perspective deployment. Two important weaknesses are their inadequate compatibility with the coolant (water and steam) and the early (<2 dpa) saturation of radiation-induced swelling during nominal operation. SCORPION strives for a radical improvement in the performance of SiC/SiC composite fuel claddings by highly innovative material tailoring on the nanoscale, so as to limit hydrothermal corrosion and radiation swelling, while also modifying the fibre/matrix interface for better stability under irradiation and in hightemperature oxidizing environments. SCORPION is an ATF application-driven international collaboration between Europe, the USA and Japan, which combines multidisciplinary scientific excellence, stakeholder know-how, and cutting-edge manufacturing approaches to produce proof-of-concept SiC/SiC composite cladding materials with a radically optimized performance for Gen-II/III LWR serviceenvironments.