About the project
Pressurised Water Reactors (PWR) use hard facings, which have low wear rates and friction. Galling wear creates extremely high friction. Hard facing alloys, such as those used in nuclear power plant, are composite materials comprising carbides (and other hard phases), in galling resistant metallic matrices. This project will identify the mechanism by which the hard phase supports galling resistance, in order to build a predictive model.
This project aims to identify the role and mechanism by which hard phase support galling resistance to support the production of a microstructural model which allows the role of the hard phase to be investigated under a range of operating loads informed by experiments. Although the issue is local to valves and operating mechanisms the transfer of debris throughout the system including the core results in activation and plating out of these debris in different parts of the nuclear plant.
This project will be sponsored by Rolls-Royce Submarines, Derby and you will receive invitations to their annual sponsored student conference.
You will have support to attend two international conferences and will gain skills in:
- surface engineering
- advanced experimental techniques
- modelling and research-industry interactions
Also there will be opportunities for short placements and possible future employment with Rolls-Royce.
The project will involve interaction with researchers at Imperial, Nottingham, Sheffield and access to rigs at the Henry Royce Institute.
