The Materials' Group

Precipitation-hardened and dispersion-strengthened copper alloys are under consideration for high heat flux applications in the first wall and divertor components in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).  These copper alloys provide a good combination of high strength and high thermal conductivity.  Copper alloys will be subjected to substantial mechanical loads due to the large thermal cycles they will experience.  Therefore, fatigue performance is of major importance in the selection and life-cycle assessment of copper alloys.  The on-going experimental program is to investigate the fatigue/creep-fatigue behavior of copper alloys at various temperatures under different loading waveforms.