ATLANTIC is a multidisciplinary research consortium of 12 UK universities.
The research programme is aimed at addressing key challenges facing the global nuclear industry: how to implement accident tolerant fuels and claddings into an established fuel cycle.
The programme has four objectives:
- To develop manufacturing and treatment routes for new fuels (silicides, nitrides and borides) and claddings (coated Zr, composites, steels).
- To take a multi-disciplined approach; combining material scientists, with physicists, chemists and engineers to ensure that a truly holistic view can be developed on the effectiveness of ATFC in UK reactors.
- To take an interlinked approach to research, combining modelling (in particular behaviour of ATFC in reactor conditions) with experiments and using results across different areas of experimentation.
- To consider wider applications of ATFC technology. Coated particle fuels, used primarily in SMR technology are similar to ATFC and their manufacture and treatment faces many of the same challenges.
The structure of the work programme and the relationship between the work packages is shown below.
The interconnection of ATLANTIC work packages and their connection to external stakeholders