Towards a single European strategic research and innovation agenda on materials for all reactor generations through dedicated projects

The goal of the ORIENT-NM action is to produce a single European strategic vision on research and innovation concerning nuclear materials in the EU, serving all reactor generations and nuclear systems. The key in this endeavour is to focus on advanced materials science practices that, combined with digital techniques, will enable acceleration in materials development, manufacturing, supply, qualification, and monitoring, in support of nuclear energy safety, efficiency, economy and sustainability. The research agenda will be rooted in existing virtuous examples of nuclear materials science projects. Here the results of three of them are summarised, thereby covering different reactor applications and families of materials, as well as a range of advanced material research approaches. GEMMA addressed a number of key areas concerning the development and qualification of metallic structural materials for GenIV reactor conditions, focusing on austenitic steels and their compatibility with several non-aqueous coolants, their welds and the modelling of their stability under irradiation. INSPYRE was an integrated project applying a basic science approach to (U,Pu)O2 fuels, to develop physics-based models for the behaviour of nuclear fuels under irradiation and improve fuel performance codes. Modelling was also the focus of the M4F project, which brought together the fission and fusion materials communities to study the effects of localised deformation under irradiation in ferritic/martensitic steels and to develop good practices to use ion irradiation as a tool to evaluate radiation effects on materials

Opening of the Neo-Tethys Ocean and the Pangea B to Pangea A transformation during the Permian

We studied the stratigraphy, composition, and paleomagnetic properties of lateritic weathering profiles of Permian age from northern Iran and western Karakoram, Pakistan. A limited set of samples deemed representative yielded stable low-inclination paleomagnetic components carried essentially by hematite of chemical origin isolated in massive, fine-grained, and homogeneous ferricrete facies. These laterites originated at equatorial paleolatitudes characterized by intense weathering processes under warm and humid climatic conditions. Paleomagnetic estimates of paleolatitude from Iran, Karakoram, and north Tibet from this study and the literature, albeit sparse, provide testable constraints on the motion of the Cimmerian terranes as the result of the opening of the Neo-Tethys Ocean along the eastern margin of Gondwana during the Permian. We confirm and help refine previous suggestions that the Cimmerian terranes migrated from southern Gondwanan paleolatitudes in the Early Permian to subequatorial paleolatitudes by the Middle Permian – Early Triassic. As a novel conclusion, we find that timing, rates, and geometry of Cimmerian tectonics are broadly compatible with the transformation of Pangea from an Irvingian B to a Wegenerian A-type configuration with Neo-Tethyan opening taking place contemporaneously essentially in the Permian

Lista bibliografica

Questa lista bibliografica contiene il secondo aggiornamento della bibliografia della Lisy e deriva dall’assemblaggio da parte della redazione (M. Serdoz ed E. Panfili) dei contributi parziali stilati dai gruppi regionali

Preliminary Assessment of Radiolysis for the Cooling Water System in the Rotating Target of {SORGENTINA}-{RF}

The SORGENTINA-RF project aims at developing a 14 MeV fusion neutron source featuring an emission rate in the order of 5-7 x 10(13) s(-1). The plant relies on a metallic water-cooled rotating target and a deuterium (50%) and tritium (50%) ion beam. Beyond the main focus of medical radioisotope production, the source may represent a multi-purpose neutron facility by implementing a series of neutron-based techniques. Among the different engineering and technological issues to be addressed, the production of incondensable gases and corrosion product into the rotating target deserves a dedicated investigation. In this study, a preliminary analysis is carried out, considering the general layout of the target and the present choice of the target material

Notulae to the Italian alien vascular flora: 12

In this contribution, new data concerning the distribution of vascular flora alien to Italy are presented. It includes new records, confirmations, exclusions, and status changes for Italy or for Italian administrative regions. Nomenclatural and distribution updates published elsewhere are provided as Suppl. material 1

Towards a single European strategic research and innovation agenda on materials for all reactor generations through dedicated projects

The goal of the ORIENT-NM action is to produce a single European strategic vision on research and innovation concerning nuclear materials in the EU, serving all reactor generations and nuclear systems. The key in this endeavour is to focus on advanced materials science practices that, combined with digital techniques, will enable acceleration in materials development, manufacturing, supply, qualification, and monitoring, in support of nuclear energy safety, efficiency, economy and sustainability. The research agenda will be rooted in existing virtuous examples of nuclear materials science projects. Here the results of three of them are summarised, thereby covering different reactor applications and families of materials, as well as a range of advanced material research approaches. GEMMA addressed a number of key areas concerning the development and qualification of metallic structural materials for GenIV reactor conditions, focusing on austenitic steels and their compatibility with several non-aqueous coolants, their welds and the modelling of their stability under irradiation. INSPYRE was an integrated project applying a basic science approach to (U,Pu)O2 fuels, to develop physics-based models for the behaviour of nuclear fuels under irradiation and improve fuel performance codes. Modelling was also the focus of the M4F project, which brought together the fission and fusion materials communities to study the effects of localised deformation under irradiation in ferritic/martensitic steels and to develop good practices to use ion irradiation as a tool to evaluate radiation effects on materials

Electron Microscopy Investigation on the Effect of Plastic Deformation in the Alloying of the Immiscible System Cu-Fe

The first steps of the solid state reaction between Cu and Fe induced by plastic deformation at low temperature have been studied by Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). Despite the positive enthalpy of mixing, plastic deformation induces interdiffusion in this system as evidenced by XRD and DSC analysis. TEM observations of samples prepared in different ways show the presence of some Fe into the Cu matrix, a relatively low density of dislocations, a large concentration of small agglomerates of point defects and a well-defined grain shape, suggesting that some dynamic recrystallization occurs during deformation. Considering the low processing temperature we advance the hypothesis that the excess concentration of point defects induced by the high strain rate plastic deformation can provide the necessary atomic mobility. Moreover the role played by these defects on the thermodynamic driving force of the alloying process is considered

Area and Power Modeling for Networks-on-Chip with Layout Awareness

Networks-on-Chip (NoCs) are emerging as scalable interconnection architectures, designed to support the increasing amount of cores that are integrated onto a silicon die. Compared to traditional interconnects, however, NoCs still lack well established CAD deployment tools to tackle the large amount of available degrees of freedom, starting from the choice of a network topology. “Silicon-aware ” optimization tools are now emerging in literature; they select an NoC topology taking into account the tradeoff between performance and hardware cost, that is, area and power consumption. A key requirement for the effectiveness of these tools, however, is the availability of accurate analytical models for power and area. Such models are unfortunately not as available and well understood as those for traditional communication fabrics. Further, simplistic models may turn out to be totally inaccurate when applied to wire dominated architectures; this observation demands at least for a model validation step against placed and routed devices. In this work, given an NoC reference architecture, we present a flow to devise analytical models of area occupation and power consumption of NoC switches, and propose strategies for coefficient characterization which have different tradeoffsin terms of accuracy and of modeling activity effort. The models are parameterized on several architectural, synthesis-related, and traffic variables, resulting in maximum flexibility. We finally assess the accuracy of the models, checking whether they can also be applied to placed and routed NoC blocks

Conservation of the Mediterranean coastal pine woodlands: How can management support biodiversity?

Forest management decisions may have unintentional effects on what they were originally not designed for, including effects on woodland species and communities. In protected areas of coastal dune woodlands, some sites are fenced as a part of forestry management. In this study, we hypothesised that different states of disturbance (disturbed vs non-disturbed) created by fencing generate unintentional heterogeneity in species composition (and possibly richness) in plant communities and soil biota. We surveyed vascular plants, oribatid mites and soil properties in fenced and nearby non-fenced places in protected coastal pine woodlands in Italy. The fenced areas were undisturbed for at least 30 years, whereas the non-fenced areas were subjected to thinning and trampling. Effects of fencing on community composition and soil properties were assessed by (distance based) redundancy analysis. Congruence between plant and mite community composition in response to fencing was tested using a series of (partial) Mantel tests. Finally, linear mixed-effects models were used to study species richness. Both plant and mite community composition showed a significant congruent response to fencing. Species richness of plants decreased due to fencing, while that of mites was unaffected. We conclude that the fencing of small areas creates biotic heterogeneity and increases beta diversity in the Mediterranean coastal woodlands. Therefore, we support the use of fencing as a relatively cheap and effective method of conservation management for maintaining the biodiversity of both above- and belowground communities in the coastal pine woodlands of the Mediterranean area