ISU prof wins $800,000 grant
An Idaho State University nuclear engineering Associate Professor has been awarded an $800,000 research grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Mary Lou Dunzik-Gougar said she would work with the Idaho National Laboratory to develop a technique for making tiny samples of new nuclear fuels and determine their strength.
“We will be working with very tiny samples that you can’t see with the naked eye,” Dunzik-Gougar said. “We will be testing a new type of particle fuel being developed and tested at the INL. We’ll take little slices of the coating of these particles on the micrometer scale. Because these particles are so small, it is difficult to test the property of the layers. In order to predict and monitor the behavior of these particles, we need to know the strength of individual layers.”
Dunzik-Gougar said there are many new materials being developed for applications that require small samples, but are difficult to test.
The official title of the grant is “Measuring Mechanical Properties of Select Layers and Layer Interfaces of TRISO Particles via Micromachining and In-Microscope Tensile Testing.”
The grant will fund the time of researchers at ISU and INL, support an ISU graduate student, and the maintenance and operation of instruments used to do the work. Researchers will also purchase new equipment to supplement the ISU microscopy lab in Pocatello.
