Dr Maria Auger

Maria has a wide experience in manufacturing ODS Fe-Cr alloys by powder metallurgy routes and thermomechanical processing. A detailed characterisation of these materials at different stages in the manufacturing process is essential to understand their behaviour after irradiation experiments or, more importantly, their behaviour under real reactor conditions. Combining different techniques like SEM, TEM, XRD and nanoindentation/tensile testing/Charpy impact testing with Atom Probe tomography provides a unique set of data that can fully describe any microstructural changes in the material and those can be correlated with the mechanical response. Some materials submitted to this type of study include ODS Fe-Cr model alloys, HT-9 steel or RPV steels (with more to come!).