The nuclear R&D roadmap

The UK Government published its Nuclear Industrial Strategy in March 2013, aimed at enhancing the UK's supply chain contribution to its civil nuclear programs, and increasing international engagement in nuclear via export and inward investment. To help realize these objectives, the strategy includes priorities on the development of a new generation of nuclear skills and renewed commitment to nuclear R&D. This Roadmap sets out a broad scope of priorities to enable up to 75GWe new nuclear generating capacity to be installed by 2050, which would make a significant contribution to driving down carbon emissions. There are several materials R&D challenges critical to the delivery of the priorities the Roadmap sets out. For spent fuel management, the long-term behavior of the fuel assemblies is controlled by the microstructure of the fuel cladding, which will have been influenced during reactor operation by high temperatures, as well as gas or water coolant and the radiation field.