A new class of superalloys—based on tungsten, titanium, or steel—is being designed to withstand the extreme heat inside nuclear fusion reactors, next-generation fission plants, and jet engines. Current nickel-based superalloys are approaching their temperature limits. Pushing operating temperatures higher would improve fuel efficiency, extend component life, and reduce emissions, but incremental gains are becoming harder to achieve. This project tackles that bottleneck by switching the base metal’s atomic crystal structure from the conventional face-centred-cubic arrangement to a body-centred-cubic (bcc) one. That shift raises melting points significantly, but it also introduces a persistent problem: the alloys are brittle and lack ductility. The researcher will test multiple strategies to make bcc superalloys ductile without sacrificing their high-temperature strength. If successful, the work could enable turbine blades that run hotter and reactors that operate more efficiently and safely. Industrial partners including Rolls-Royce, TIMET, and the UK Atomic Energy Authority are already lined up to help scale the materials from lab to production. The project is applied, not fundamental—its goal is to remove the commercialisation barrier for a class of alloys that has shown promise but never left the laboratory.
View original technical description
Nuclear fusion, Generation IV fission reactors and aerospace gas turbines are critical to our future energy generation and transportation. Their operation at high temperatures necessitates construction from a variety of advanced materials. In order to withstand these extreme environments materials require high melting points, high temperature strength and environmental resistance, and, for nuclear, irradiation resistance. There are strong environmental and economic incentives to yet further increase the temperature capability of the materials used, in order to improve efficiency to reduce fuel use, as well as for improve performance, design life and safety. However, while iterative improvements are being made year on year the temperature gains are becoming ever harder to realise. In this Future Leaders Fellowship a step change in temperature capability is sought by the realisation of a new class of body-centred-cubic (bcc, an atomic crystal structure) superalloys based on (1) Tungsten, (2) Titanium, and (3) Steel, for the extreme environments of nuclear fusion and gen IV fission reactors as well as aerospace gas turbine engines. I have created a close network of industrial, national and international academic partners, that will enable translation of these advanced materials from concept through to scale-up. The collaborations will be split across the bcc-superalloys Work Packages: (WP1) Tungsten, linking in UKAEA, toward nuclear fusion and Gen IV fission; (WP2) Titanium, for aero-engines, working with Rolls Royce and TIMET; (WP3) Steels, part of a collaboration with UKAEA, Bangor University and University of Manchester. Bcc superalloys comprise a metal matrix, where the atoms are arranged in a bcc crystal structure, which are reinforced by forming precipitates of high strength ordered-bcc intermetallic compounds (e.g. TiFe or NiAl). This has parallels to the strategy used in current face-centred-cubic (fcc) nickel-based superalloys. However, changing the base metal's crystal structure, and therefore also the reinforcing intermetallic compound, represents a fundamental redesign and necessitates the development of new understanding. The key advantage of using a bcc refractory-metal-, titanium-, or steel- based superalloy is their increased melting point(s), which give the possibility of increased operating temperatures, as well as greatly reduced cost for the case of steels. However, the change in crystal structure requires a fundamentally new design strategy. While the limited investigations into bcc superalloys have indicated that they have attractive strength, and creep resistance, they have been held back by their low ductility. During this fellowship, I will thoroughly investigate multiple ductilisation strategies on bcc-superalloys to advance their technology readiness level (TRL) and so remove the current barrier to their commercialisation.
Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.
Is something wrong? Let us know