Comprehensive Nuclear Materials

Inside a reactor, materials face radiation, high temperatures and corrosion, often all at once, and these conditions can change how a material behaves in ways that ordinary engineering materials never do. This seven-volume reference set addresses four pressing problems in nuclear technology: keeping today's Generation II power plants running for longer, designing Generation IV reactors, building the ITER fusion reactor at Cadarache in France, and storing nuclear waste both temporarily and permanently. Engineers working on these projects need to know how a wide range of materials perform under such conditions and what processes drive those changes, so they can judge performance and set safe operating limits.

The set offers wide-ranging, validated overviews of the main subjects in nuclear materials research, covering both fission and fusion systems. Its chapters examine the scientific basis of nuclear fuels, structural materials for fission reactors, waste materials and materials for fusion reactors. The writing is pitched so that undergraduate students can follow it, while active researchers can use it as a dependable reference.

This second edition revises and updates most chapters from the first, and adds many new topics in newly written sections. The authors note that the decade between editions brought major shifts in how nuclear materials are applied, driven by world events, public concern and technological progress, and that materials remain central to enabling new technologies.