Critical experiments for predicting fatigue crack growth behaviour in PWRs

疲劳是影响压水堆重要部件完整性的关键退化机制之一。然而，金属疲劳也是一个跨越力学和材料科学界限的具有挑战性的科学现象。有必要进行关键实验，以深入了解微观结构的作用机理，并评估不同的微观结构和环境对高完整性压水堆部件使用寿命的影响。本博士项目的目标是进行力学和材料表征实验，以揭示疲劳裂纹的形核和扩展，包括环境的作用。这包括机械测试和高分辨率表征技术，如EBSD、EDX和DIC，这些技术将用于表征晶体中的微结构、化学和存储变形，例如晶体取向、位错密度和残余应力分布。预计该学生将与一个与之配套的计算博士项目密切合作。

Fatigue is one of the key degradation mechanisms affecting the integrity of important PWR components. However, metallic fatigue is also a challenge scientific phenomenon that crosses the boundaries of mechanics and materials science. There is a need to conduct critical experiments to gain insight into the microstructural mechanisms at play and assess the influence of different microstructures and environments on the service life of high integrity PWR components.The goal of this PhD project is to conduct mechanical and materials characterisation experiments to shed light into fatigue crack nucleation and growth, including the role of the environment. This includes mechanical testing and also high-resolution characterisation techniques such as EBSD, EDX, and DIC, which will be used to characterize the microstructure, chemistry and stored distortion in crystals, e.g. grain orientation, dislocation density and residual stresses distribution. The student is expected to collaborate closely with a companion computational PhD project.