ML25135A064

Public Meeting Transcript, Accelerated Material Qualification, May 6, 2025

ML25135A064
Person / Time
Issue date:	05/15/2025
From:	Savara A NRC/RES/DE
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Aditya Savara 4151049
References
NRC-0326
Download: ML25135A064 (138)

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Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Title:

Meeting on Accelerated Material Qualification Docket Number:

(n/a)

Location:

Rockville, Maryland Date:

Tuesday, May 6, 2025 Work Order No.:

NRC-0326 Pages 1-137 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.

Court Reporters and Transcribers 1716 14th Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20009 (202) 234-4433

1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2

+ + + + +

3 MEETING ON ACCELERATED MATERIAL QUALIFICATION 4

+ + + + +

5

TUESDAY, 6

MAY 6, 2025 7

+ + + + +

8 The meeting was convened at One White 9

Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike Rockville, 10 Maryland, 20852, at 1:00 p.m. EST, Raj Iyengar, 11 Facilitator, presiding.

12 13 PRESENT:

14 RAJ IYENGAR, Facilitator 15 MEREDITH NEUBAUER, NRC 16 CHRISTIAN ARAGUAS, NRC 17 MEIMEI LI, DOE-NE 18 MARC ALBERT, EPRI*

19 CHRIS WAX, EPRI*

20 ZEFENG YU, Westinghouse*

21 CRAIG GERARDI, Kairos*

22 LUKE ANDREW, Aalo 23 BRIDGETTE HANNIFIN, TerraPower*

24 PARKER BUNTIN, Radiant Nuclear*

25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

2 ALSO PRESENT:

1 ADITYA "ASHI' SAVARA, NRC*

2 TING-LEUNG SHAM, NRC 3

DIRK CAIRNS-GALLIMORE, NRC 4

DAVE RUDLAND, NRC 5

DANIEL EISEN, NRC*

6 MATTHEW HISER, NRC*

7 AMANDA SPALDING, NRC*

8 CHANSON YANG, NRC*

9 MICHAEL MCMURTREY, NRC*

10 BRUCE GREER, EPRI*

11 CHRIS FANNING, NRC*

12 GREG OBERSON, NRC*

13

• Present via Video-Teleconference 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

3 C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 1

Welcome and Introduction 4

2 Opening Remarks.................

8 3

AMMT's Perspectives on Accelerated Material 4

Qualification for Advanced Reactors....... 13 5

Accelerating the Deployment of Materials and 6

Advanced Manufacturing Methods for Nuclear 7

Applications

.................. 26 8

Material Qualification for the 9

eVinci Microreactor............... 46 10 Aalo's Advanced Manufacturing and Qualifications 11 Approach for Intermediate Heat Exchangers.... 57 12 Kairos Power: An Integrated approach for 13 Reactor Materials................ 65 14 Metallic Materials Development for the 15 Natrium Advanced Reactor

............ 71 16 Qualification of Metallic Materials 17 for Kaleidos

.................. 82 18 Discussion

................... 90 19 Public Q&A 134 20 Closing Remarks................

135 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

4 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 1

1:00 p.m.

2 MS. NEUBAUER: Hello, everyone. Welcome 3

to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's public meeting 4

on guidance development for accelerated material 5

qualification.

6 My name is Meredith Neubauer and I am a 7

senior civil right specialist in the Office of Small 8

Business and Civil Rights, but today I am serving as 9

your in-person facilitator.

10 This is a hybrid public meeting which has 11 been categorized as an information meeting with a 12 question and answer session. That means that the 13 purpose of this meeting is for the NRC staff to meet 14 directly with individuals to provide an opportunity to 15 discuss regulatory and technical issues.

16 Attendees have an opportunity to ask 17 questions of the NRC staff or make comments about the 18 issues discussed throughout the meeting, however the 19 NRC is not actively soliciting comments towards 20 regulatory decisions at this time.

21 Please note that today's meeting is being 22 transcribed, but not recorded. We ask that you help 23 us get a full clear accounting of the meeting by 24 staying on mute if you are on the phone or on Teams 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

5 and are not speaking. Also, please keep your 1

electronic devices on silent and side discussions to 2

a minimum if you are here in the room with me. Also, 3

it helps us out greatly if all speakers can identify 4

themselves and any group they're with when they first 5

speak.

6 For my virtual participants, if you are in 7

need to captioning, please go to settings, language 8

and speech, turn on live captions. Similarly, if you 9

need to focus on the content of the presentation when 10 the slides are on, go to view, focus on content. This 11 will eliminate the camera portion and focus 12 exclusively on the presentation.

13 Also for our virtual participants, if you 14 are a speaker, please raise your hand in Teams at this 15 time so we can identify you.

16 I think, Ashi, you might have done that 17 right before I came in.

18 So if you do have trouble with the Teams 19 application, it is recommended that you first 20 disconnect and try to reconnect to this Teams meeting 21 or use the Teams teleconference number that has been 22 provided in the meeting notice.

23 You may also see a Q&A box if your Teams 24 software allows for it. This was created so that 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

6 members of the public may enter questions through this 1

box at any time during the meeting. Even if this 2

feature appears for you, questions will likely be held 3

until later in the meeting such as during the Q&A 4

session. During that session online and phone 5

attendees will also be able to use the raised hand 6

feature to ask questions by microphone.

7 If you are a member of the public, you can 8

also ask questions outside of the meeting by 9

contacting the appropriate NRC contact and by using 10 the NRC public meeting feedback form at 11 feedback.nrc.gov and meeting code 20250482. And we 12 will put that in the chat so everyone can access that 13 later.

14 For our in-person attendees I request that 15 all participants sign the sign-in sheet that has gone 16 around and that any non-NRC employees using Microsoft 17 Teams please send an email to the meeting contact.

18 And I will spell this. It is A-D-I-T-Y-A, dot, S-A, 19 V as in Victor, A-R-A@nrc.gov with your first name and 20 last name so that he can document your attendance in 21 the meeting summary.

22 Restrooms can be found on this floor by 23 going out that door, turning right, going through the 24 lobby, and making another left, I believe. And it 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

7 will be in front of our café. In case of an emergency 1

please follow NRC staff as we go through out this door 2

to the lobby to the exit.

3 As one of my main functions as a 4

facilitator I will be notifying speakers when they 5

have five minutes left within their presentation. It 6

will be nice gentle reminder. And I will be issuing 7

reminders to all speakers to please finalize their 8

comments in order to keep the meeting schedule on 9

time.

10 The slide presentations for this meeting 11 will be posted on the public meeting notice site once 12 available.

13 And finally, I probably don't really have 14 to say this, but I ask that you adhere to civil 15 decorum, that out of respect for each other you don't 16 disrupt the speaking times of others. Just as you 17 wouldn't want to be interrupted during your 18 opportunity, please respect the speaking time of those 19 that are speaking.

20 Threatening gestures or statements will be 21 under no circumstances tolerated and cause for 22 immediate ejection from the meeting. Believe it or 23 not, we do actually have to say that statement. If 24 you feel that you've been threatened, please let me 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

8 know or please tell one of the NRC personnel standing 1

around the room.

2 If you have something that you would like 3

to give to the empaneled NRC staff, please hand it to 4

me.

5 And at this time I'm going to turn it over 6

to Christian --

7 MR. ARAGUAS: Araguas.

8 MS. NEUBAUER: -- Araguas, Director of the 9

Division of Engineering for the NRC Office of 10 Research. Thank you.

11 MR. ARAGUAS: Thank you, Meredith, and I 12 appreciate you giving it your best shot.

13 MS. NEUBAUER: I really did.

14 MR. ARAGUAS: You were there. You were 15 there.

16 MS. NEUBAUER: I froze right at that 17 moment.

18 MR. ARAGUAS: And we can jump to the next 19 slide. So I just want to take a couple minutes just 20 first off just thanking everybody for coming to this 21 public meeting. I see we have about 40 people online.

22 We have about a dozen in the room. And this has come 23 together in sort of quick fashion, so I'm really 24 pleased to see the turnout and the interest.

25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

9 And as Meredith alluded to, so really our 1

purpose today is to hear from the technical community 2

on activities related to accelerated material 3

qualification via advanced manufacturing and 4

traditional manufacturing technologies for both 5

near-term and mid-term deployment of advanced 6

reactors.

7 And so what we have on the slide you see 8

is the ADVANCE Act, Section 401. That's -- matter of 9

fact, the ADVANCE Act, if I could just step back, is 10 really a driver for a lot of the significant changes 11 you're hearing about here at the NRC. But again, the 12 focus for us is specifically on the Section 401 13 report. I'll get to that in a minute because one of 14 the things I wanted to highlight is within the ADVANCE 15 Act we've seen changes, we've talked about changes to 16

-- with the mission. And I wanted to take a minute 17 just to kind of share that with you because I think it 18 really ingrains what we're trying to do here, 19 particularly related to accelerated material 20 qualification.

21 And if you'll just bear with me, I'll 22 read. The NRC protects public health and safety and 23 advances the nation's common defense and security by 24 enabling the safe and secure use and deployment of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

10 civilian nuclear energy technologies and radioactive 1

materials through efficient and reliable licensing, 2

oversight, and regulation for the benefit of society 3

and the environment.

4 And so again, what is our focus? The 5

agency is trying to hear from the community so that we 6

can ensure that we're meeting our mission, being 7

efficient and expeditious in our licensing going 8

forward.

9 And so again, I mentioned the ADVANCE Act, 10 Section 401 report. For awareness we issued a report, 11 I believe it was earlier this year, that talked about 12 a number of different activities that the agency would 13 consider doing. One of those topics was on 14 accelerated material qualification and it talked about 15 the agency's desire to develop guidance going forward.

16 So for us, again the focus for this meeting is to hear 17 from that community and learn what the technical 18 community is doing currently and interested in going 19 forward.

20 So next slide? And so you kind of heard 21 that already from me, and so sort of the last point, 22 as you heard Meredith say, no licensing or regulatory 23 decisions are being made at today's meeting, so if I 24 harken back to the purpose of really the discussion 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

11 and the feedback from this collective group.

1 We can shift to the agenda and then I will 2

wrap up very quickly. So we've got a packed agenda 3

and I think I know our folks are really looking 4

forward to hearing from everybody that's on there.

5 And as you can see, we have a presentation from the 6

Department of Energy, from EPRI, and then from a 7

number of vendors. We'll hear from Westinghouse, 8

Kairos, and then later in the afternoon we'll hear 9

from Aalo, TerraPower, and Radiant Nuclear. And so 10 it's going to be a lot to get through.

11 Meredith, you're going to have a tough job 12 keeping folks on task.

13 MS. NEUBAUER: I'm good.

14 MR. ARAGUAS: -- but I have confidence 15 you'll be able to do that. And so again, thank you.

16 Thank you, everybody.

17 And with that, Raj, I will turn it over to 18 you.

19 MR. IYENGAR: Thank you very much, 20 Christian. I welcome all of you for this meeting. As 21 Christian mentioned, it is an information meeting. I 22 want to reiterate it's not an information gathering 23 meeting so we are not asking for any specific schedule 24 or timeline or any design-specific information.

25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

12 Nevertheless, we will be interested in hearing from 1

the technical community on all the various technical 2

activities, the research and technical activities 3

related to the topic of interest of today.

4 Each speaker has 15 minutes. And I think 5

we'll defer all the Q&A to the discussion session so 6

you can maximize the 15 minutes. If you go over 15 7

minutes, I think Meredith's not going to be nice to 8

you, so --

9 (Laughter.)

10 MR. IYENGAR: She will remind you.

11 So our first speaker is Dr. Li, Meimei Li 12 from Argonne.

13 Argonne National Lab, right?

14 DR. LI: Yes.

15 MR. IYENGAR: And she is representing 16 DOE-NE and she is sharing her presentation with Dirk, 17 who is a federal program manager. I've talked to him 18 a number of times. So I think you're going to hear a 19 lot of great work that DOE is doing in advancing the 20 state of technology in this area and making it 21 possible for materials to be qualified pretty soon.

22 DR. LI: Round 2.

23 MR. IYENGAR: With that, luckily --

24 DR. LI: Round 2.

25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

13 MR. IYENGAR: Take it on.

1 DR. LI: Okay. So thank you for the 2

introduction. My name is Meimei Li. I'm the National 3

Technical Director for Advanced Material and 4

Manufacturing Technology, AMMT, Program. This is a 5

program supported by DOE Office of Nuclear Energy. My 6

fellow program manager is Dirk Cairns-Gallimore. I 7

believe he will join us shortly.

8 So we want to thank the organizer to give 9

us the opportunity to talk about AMMT's perspective on 10 accelerated material qualification for advanced 11 reactor.

12 We can go to next slides, please. So 13 first of all I want to give you a very brief 14 introduction of the program. So the mission of the 15 AMMT program is to accelerate the process from 16 development to qualification to demonstration and 17 deployment of accelerated material manufacturing 18 technology to support a broad range of nuclear energy 19 applications.

20 So the program has four major goals: The 21 first one is to develop advanced material 22 manufacturing technology that have cross-reactor 23 impact.

24 The second one is establish and 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

14 demonstrate a rapid qualification framework that can 1

be applied to material whether it's made by advanced 2

manufacturing or traditional manufacturing.

3 The third one is to evaluate materials 4

performance in nuclear environment focusing on 5

corrosion and radiation impact.

6 The last one is to accelerate 7

commercialization through technology maturation.

8 We can go to next slides. So the program 9

has four core technical areas: In the accelerated 10 material manufacturing area we focus on advanced 11 metallic materials. We cover advanced manufacturing 12 technology, also traditional manufacturing, and the 13 system integration.

14 So in the rapid qualification area we aim 15 to develop a rapid qualification framework focusing on 16 high-temperature material qualification and the 17 qualification of advanced manufacturing.

18 The environmental effect area addresses 19 the corrosion and radiation effect including neutron 20 irradiation and post-irradiation examination and also 21 accelerate qualification for radiation effect and to 22 evaluate the corrosion effect in nuclear environment.

23 So the technology maturation area is to 24 increase the TRO level by component fabrication and 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

15 testing to demonstrate new material manufacturing 1

technology, and also to engage with the stakeholder to 2

develop the code and standard and guidelines. And 3

also to address questions related to regulatory 4

acceptance and licensing.

5 So the AMMT program support a broad range 6

of reactor concept, whether it's molten salt or sodium 7

cool, gas cool, large cool advanced, or light water 8

reactor, whether it's large scale or small or SMR or 9

microreactor.

10 We go to the next slides. So in the AMMT 11 program, what do we mean by qualification? So to us, 12 qualification refer to the entire

process, 13 transitioning material from the development stage to 14 the approval for nuclear application. So our material 15 qualification effort address the effect of 16 temperature, stress, radiation, and corrosion. And 17 the key aspect of the qualification process include 18 generating baseline property and also temperature 19 effect, for example, thermal aging effect, and also 20 performance testing in radiation and corrosion 21 environment, and predictive modeling of the 22 processing-structure-property-performance-relationsh 23 ip.

24 When we say performance, we mean how 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

16 material behave in a nuclear environment differentiate 1

from the property. And also to develop the codes and 2

standard and guideline.

3 So the goal of the accelerated material 4

qualification is basically to do this faster and also 5

in a more cost-effective way, but maintaining the 6

thoroughness and integrity of the qualification 7

process.

8 So acceleration is achieved through using 9

innovative testing technique, advanced 10 characterization, modeling simulation, and machine 11 learning. That way it will actually reduce our 12 dependence on extensive engineering data generation 13 and also allow us to rapidly evaluate the long-term 14 behavior of the material in nuclear environment. And 15 also implement large time extrapolation factor. And 16 also utilize the non-standard or even small-scale 17 specimen data.

18 Next slides.

19 MR. RUDLAND: Can I ask quick question?

20 DR. LI: Yes, please.

21 MR. RUDLAND: Is the goal to -- this is 22 Dave Rudland from staff. Is the goal to get these 23 materials included in codes and standards?

24 DR. LI: That's part of it. I will talk 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

17 about that --

1 MR. RUDLAND: Okay.

2 DR. LI: -- yes, later. Okay.

3 So I talk about we have four technical 4

area. Each technical area play a very important role 5

in the qualification process. So our accelerated 6

material and manufacturing development basically lay 7

the groundwork for qualification. So our material 8

development strategy is really integrate material 9

development with manufacturing processes.

10 So what do we mean by that? First, we 11 apply advanced manufacturing to existing reactor 12 material so we can expand the application of those 13 material so the industry has a option using different 14 fabrication technique depending on their design.

15 And second, we also want to leverage the 16 development effort in other industry to look at the 17 commercial material that develop for non-nuclear 18 application, but potentially can have good performance 19 in nuclear environment and bring those material into 20 the nuclear space. We also develop innovative new 21 materials that can take advantage of new material 22 design concepts or enabled by advanced manufacturing.

23 So currently the material we focus on 24 including iron-based alloy, nickel-based alloy, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

18 refractory alloy, and innovative material. For 1

example, ODS, high-entropy alloy, or functionally 2

graded material.

3 The material manufacturing process. So 4

far we have focus on laser powder bed fusion, directed 5

energy deposition, PM-HIP. And also address the 6

challenges associated with traditional manufacturing 7

particularly when they applies to new materials, 8

hybrid manufacturing integrating traditional and 9

advanced manufacturing. And joining technique is also 10 very important topic for us.

11 Next slides, please. So one of our major 12 efforts is to develop the rapid qualification 13 framework. This framework is to integrate the 14 scientific understanding with engineering data so we 15 can establish a physics-based form and data-driven 16 qualification methodology. The foundation of this 17 framework is really to understand and predict the 18 relationship between the processing structure property 19 and performance so we know how input parameter, 20 whether they are manufacturing condition or chemical 21 composition, how that impact material's performance in 22 nuclear reactors.

23 And to do that we need to use all 24 available advanced experimental and computational 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

19 tools. And also very importantly trying to 1

incorporate the in-situ processing and monitoring data 2

i n t o t h e q u a l i f i c a t i o n p r o c e s s.

3 So initially we have selected Laser Power Bed 4

Fusion 316H as a case study to develop the rapid 5

qualification measures.

6 Next slides, please? So there are a 7

number of rapid qualification measures we have been 8

looking at and using. For example, advanced 9

experimental tools such as automated, fast NDE like 10 X-ray computers tomography or advanced 11 characterization using electron beam X-ray neutron 12 beam for characterization. And also small-scale 13 specimen testing, accelerated testing tool. For 14 example, ion irradiation. So those allow us to 15 generate large quantity of the data and also provide 16 detailed understanding of the material's behavior.

17 And as I

mention, in-situ process 18 monitoring is going to play a very important role in 19 qualification, particularly for advanced manufacturing 20 such as additive because in-process monitoring 21 basically allow us to monitor the entire fabrication 22 process and can be a very important quality control 23 tools. And also will be part of the digital thread I 24 will talk about later.

25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

20 The computational tool. The computational 1

tool actually can help provide predictive 2

understanding this complement experimental data.

3 Particularly we now focusing on modeling the 4

processing-structure-property-performance-relationship 5

and also trying to use short-term experimental data to 6

extrapolate to long-term behavior. And obviously 7

sensitivity analysis and uncertainty qualification 8

also very important to have a confidence in 9

prediction.

10 Next slides, please? Radiation effect 11 obviously is a very unique challenge for material to 12 be used in nuclear environment. We certainly 13 recognize importance to generate neutron radiation 14 data, but it is very costly, very time-consuming. So 15 we're trying to come up with a methodology we can 16 combine the neutron radiation and ion irradiation 17 data, which is you can generate relatively quickly.

18 And together with the physics-based modeling to 19 accelerate the qualification for radiation effect.

20 So currently we have ongoing neutron 21 radiation experiment as ATR and HFIR for Laser Powder 22 Bed Fusion 316H. And also in the planning stage to do 23 neutron radiation of 709. But using ion irradiation 24 as accelerated tools definitely will allow us to probe 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

21 a large parameter space, whether a metallurgical 1

variable or radiation parameter. But it's very 2

important to incorporate modeling simulation if we 3

want to truly utilize both neutron radiation and 4

radiation for qualification of radiation effect. And 5

also very importantly material surveillance technology 6

is also -- is going to play a very important role to 7

monitor material degradation in service to reduce 8

uncertainty.

9 Next slides, please? So corrosion effect.

10 Because we're trying to support a broad range of 11 reactor technology, which they use a different coolant 12 and also run as a different temperature. So 13 material's interaction with coolant is a very big 14 challenge. Currently we focus on understanding the 15 corrosion process in molten salt and liquid sodium and 16 also the helium environment. Another important effort 17 is try to evaluate the corrosion behavior of AM 18 material, which has some unique characteristics. So 19 we don't have a lot understanding how those material 20 will behave.

21 So our ongoing activity including testing 22 in molten salt cover wide range of the alloys, in 23 chlorate and also fluorate. We also have the testing 24 program in liquid sodium using forced-convection 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

22 loops. At Argonne currently focused on Alloy 709 and 1

also Laser Power Bed Fusion 316H.

2 Next slides, please? So part of this 3

rapid qualification framework is really try to utilize 4

all of the digital information that become more and 5

more common and try to leverage this information to 6

help accelerate the qualification process. So we 7

currently work on this so-call MDDC platform, Material 8

Dimensional Data Correlation. It is a digital 9

platform that's basically allow integrating the data 10 across the entire life cycle from the design data to 11 manufacturing data, testing, inspection, and final 12 performance. And this actually can help to create 13 digital threat, a virtual representation for each 14 component. That give you the full traceability of the 15 component which going to play a very important role in 16 the qualification particularly for the low-rate 17 production or the critical -- safety critical 18 component.

19 Next

slides, please?

Obviously 20 accelerated qualification methodology takes time to 21 develop and also accept. So our strategy is to take 22 the staged approach to start with traditional 23 qualification approach.

For

example, 24 statistical-based or equivalence-based and then 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

23 gradually transition to more advanced accelerated 1

qualification methodology.

2 And also we do want to demonstrate this 3

rapid qualification framework, although it's currently 4

using 316H Laser Powder Fusion as a case study, but it 5

should be able to apply to material made by various 6

manufacturing technique. And also in the meantime 7

it's very important to develop the code and standard, 8

whether it's new material specification or it's a 9

standard for new testing method.

10 We also has a lot of ongoing effort 11 working with ASME to develop the code cases. For 12 example, Laser Powder Bed Fusion 316H, 100,000-hour 13 code case in Section 3, Division 5. And there's 14 ongoing 709 100,000-hour code case. But in the future 15 we also want to extend to 30 years, 60 years. And 16 also qualify different product form. Now it's a 17 plate, but in the future want to input different 18 product form. And also introduce other new materials 19 and manufacturing technology into Section 3, Division 20 5 for high-temperature application.

21 But another very important aspect is to 22 develop the guideline requirement for environmental 23 effect because Division 5

does not address 24 environmental effect of corrosion or radiation effect.

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24 So we needs to come up with some guideline that help 1

the industry to be able to account for those effect.

2 Also we are interested in identify alternative pathway 3

to get the material qualify so the industry can use 4

them quickly. So this is actually -- I think the 5

whole community can work together to see what other 6

options we have.

7 Next slides, please? Oh, I'm already on 8

the last slide, so that's good. So to summarize, in 9

the AMMT program the material qualification address 10 temperature, stress, irradiation, and corrosion effect 11 in nuclear reactor. And material qualification 12 currently focus on high-temperature material 13 qualification and qualification of advanced 14 manufacturing. Our rapid qualification framework is 15 to integrate the engineering data with scientific 16 understanding of processing-structure-property-17 performance-relationship and leveraging advanced 18 characterization, high throughput testing, modeling, 19 simulation, and AI machine learning.

20 We also actively engage with stakeholder 21 to understand, address their need requirement, and 22 expectations. Actually, we list a number of items we 23 could benefit from the guidance from NRC. I won't go 24 over those item, but this is what I have and happy to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

25 answer question maybe later.

1 MS. NEUBAUER: Yes.

2 MR. IYENGAR: Thank you --

3 DR. LI: Thank you very much.

4 MR. IYENGAR: -- Dr. Li.

5 I do -- You think -- there's a little bit 6

time left since Dirk you joined. Do you want to say 7

a few words, because you have all the money that 8

you're helping all these labs do all this work.

9 MR. CAIRNS-GALLIMORE: Yes. My name is 10 Dirk Cairns-Gallimore. I'm the federal program 11 manager for the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing 12 Technologies Program.

13 Even though from the federal standpoint we 14 need to be supporting the industry but also just 15 making sure that we can do things better, hopefully 16 faster, and in the long run less expensive to the 17 broader community. And I can't do that without the 18 really good engineering folks from the national labs.

19 One of the key aspects of the AMMT is leveraging as 20 much information as possible from wherever we can get 21 it, be it the labs, industry, or whoever is willing to 22 share the information so we can be more successful.

23 MR. IYENGAR: Thank you. Yes, I think 24 there's a lot of work going on in DOE. I hear that 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

26 all the time.

1 So our next speaker will be our friends 2

from EPRI, Marc Albert and Chris Wax.

3 Of course Chris, I talk to Chris every two 4

weeks. So they're going to be talking about 5

accelerating the deployment of materials and advanced 6

manufacturing methods for nuclear applications.

7 Marc, are you going to be the first 8

speaker?

9 MR. ALBERT: Yes, thanks, Raj.

10 I will speak and I'll be tag-teaming as 11 you alluded to our discussion here and some of EPRI's 12 perspectives that align pretty well with Meimei's 13 presentation and the goals from the AMMT program at 14 DOE.

15 So quick introduction. Marc Albert, team 16 lead here, focused in advanced manufacturing and 17 materials qualification. And as you mentioned, Chris 18 Wax is my colleague here at EPRI in the Advanced 19 Nuclear Technology program. And Chris is focused on 20 the environmental degradation side of things and 21 leads our Advanced Reactor Materials Reliability 22 program.

23 And so if you can go to the next slide?

24 Meimei did a really good job of kind of teeing up some 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

27 of this and I'll try to maybe take a quick step deeper 1

in some of the perspectives and allude to how the 2

industry and regulatory bodies like the NRC can help 3

accelerate things.

4 As Meimei mentioned, code qualification is 5

just the first piece of what we mean by the term 6

qualification. And similarly, Meimei mentioned a lot 7

of the environmental effects. And one thing that I 8

want to kind of highlight here is that obviously the 9

NRC or any regulator has explicitly stated it: it's 10 the responsibility of the owner-operator to 11 demonstrate to the regulator that the effects of 12 structural failure have been accounted for in their 13 specific design. And so certainly codification is a 14 piece of it. Those environmental effects are a key 15 piece.

16 And then one thing that Meimei mentioned 17 in terms of the manufacturing, but not just advanced 18 manufacturing, but any manufacturing method is how 19 critical the data and understanding of informed 20 fabrication is and enabling and ensuring you have a 21 supply chain. So when we say qualification at EPRI, 22 we often replace the term qualification with advanced 23 reactor materials deployment because it takes all of 24 those aspects to deploy a material for nuclear 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

28 applications.

1 Next slide? And so this is an eye chart 2

of a slide and just kind of a quick representation of 3

those three buckets or categories of data needed for 4

qualification from the staggered or staged approach 5

that Meimei alluded to in codes and standards from 6

extending the service life from 1,000 hundred hours to 7

300 or 500,000 hours0 days <br />0 hours <br />0 weeks <br />0 months <br /> and the slew of environmental 8

effects. And so when we talk about accelerating the 9

qualification, all those different tools that Meimei 10 alluded to are really important.

11 And the question is how do we capture all 12 of this data or supplement or supplant some of this 13 data with additional methodologies, particularly when 14 you look at things like combined environmental effects 15 where today there just aren't test capabilities or the 16 infrastructure to actually test in prototypic advanced 17 reactor environments?

18 So in terms of

modeling, material 19 surveillance, all those additional tools, how do we 20 kind of pull that time line from the right to the left 21 in terms of both regulatory approval, codes and 22 standards, and enabling a supply chain? And so 23 hopefully in the next couple of slides that we'll talk 24 about with Chris and I, I'll kind of allude to some of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

29 the aspects that EPRI's focused on and we think 1

industry can do to accelerate things a bit including 2

demonstrations as well.

3 Next slide? And so exactly as I alluded 4

to in the previous slide, the real question I think we 5

need to answer in industry is how do we reduce this 6

costly experiment? And there are numerous tools in 7

the tool box to do that, but the real question to 8

answer is well, how much is enough and what provides 9

terms like reasonable assurance or what is enough from 10 a good engineering practice to have all of that data 11 or sufficient data at least to be able to make 12 informed design decisions? And it's not just design 13 stress allowables, but it's actually understanding and 14 having insurance that you'll capture and identify a 15 degradation mechanism before it becomes a safety issue 16 in your plant.

17 So the example on the right is just one 18 example of a data point where you have a bunch of 19 calculated data, but limited actual experimental data.

20 So this is very dependent on material type, the 21 specific application, the coolant environment. And I 22 think we all from an engineering practice understand 23 you need to have at least enough data to capture those 24 inflection points, right? Where is the cliff edge 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

30 where your material properties degrade at a rapid rate 1

or if there is something happening microstressfully 2

that that changes significantly? And additionally, 3

what is the level of accuracy needed, not just the 4

number of data points, but how accurate do they need 5

to be?

6 And so some of those approaches to deal 7

with that lack of data, right, is you can increase 8

inspection and monitoring, which Chris will talk about 9

here in a few minutes. You can certainly have large 10 error bars with your uncertainty and built-in 11 conservatism. And as Meimei mentioned, fill in gaps 12 with data and other tools. And I think the real focus 13 at EPRI is making sure that we target those high-cost 14 experiments that take either really long timelines or 15 a lot of resource or take, you know, bespoke or unique 16 capabilities that may not even be available in the 17 U.S., but even internationally to capture some of that 18 data.

19 And I think that's where this discussion 20 today is really helpful is having that kind of 21 discussion on how we can collaborate, but more 22 importantly develop some guidance or industry 23 consensus to help regulators make those decisions on 24 what is enough data or what data is -- provides 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

31 reasonable assurance?

1 So if we go to the next slide, I'll talk 2

about just a few -- and you can even go to the next 3

slide -- a few of our approaches. And one item that 4

we've identified -- and I applaud the NRC because I 5

think this is very important. And not just me and 6

EPRI, but the Advanced Reactor North American Roadmap 7

has identified the capture of data -- material data 8

and qualification to support deployment as a critical 9

gap for advanced reactors.

10 And so EPRI has launched a specific 11 project focused on developing, deploying, and piloting 12 accelerated approaches for qualification. So Meimei 13 did a great job kind of teeing up a lot of those 14 potential what I'll call tools in the tool box to help 15 accelerate that long lead time, resource-intensive and 16 time-consuming testing that's needed. And there's 17 certainly different advantage and disadvantages of 18 each.

19 So as part of our first phase of this we 20 worked with Argonne National Lab here at EPRI and 21 started to assess and develop those different 22 accelerated approaches to qualification. So at the 23 end of last year we published a technical report.

24 It's available currently only to EPRI members, but 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

32 we're working to make that freely available to the 1

public here in the near term.

2 And so we assembled I'll call it the most 3

promising or most value-added accelerated methods.

4 And this was kind of what I like to call a primer 5

document that outlines the advantages of those 6

methods, the disadvantages of the methods, and where 7

there might be more work or development needed to be 8

able to actually deploy those accelerated methods.

9 And so that kind of primer document is what I 10 would call kind of a recipe or a tool box of different 11 options you have.

12 And so our next steps at EPRI are really 13 focused on how do we integrate some of those 14 approaches -- and I'll talk about that in a few 15 minutes -- into a qualification framework? And so 16 we're moving onto the next phase working to continue 17 our collaboration with Argonne to really pilot that 18 framework with unknown materials. So looking for 19 example at like 316 austenic stainless steel variant 20 where there's a lot of data. It's a widely available 21 material. So we have that understanding of kind of 22 those cliff edges or where those inflection points in 23 the data are. Supplement it with additional testing.

24 But at the same time it's a material that has industry 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

33 relevance and qualifying that it isn't already 1

qualified in ASME Section 3, Division 5.

2 So if you go to the next slide, I'll touch 3

a little bit of that effort. So this is just kind of 4

a summary of that technical report that I mentioned.

5 It kind of surveys those methods. I will say it 6

really did focus on allowing acceleration mostly on 7

the code qualification piece and not as much as on the 8

environmental degradation or radiation effects of 9

environmental effects as part of that.

10 That's kind of a future phase or a larger 11 piece of the pie to chew off. So focusing on kind of 12 smaller wins at the moment and really focus primarily 13 along that long-term creep data because that is really 14 the long pole in the tent when it comes to terms of 15 codification of new materials. So again, that's been 16 published late last year and we're working to make 17 that publicly available as well.

18 So if you'd go to the next slide. This 19 just a few examples. And Meimei touched on a lot of 20 these that are being worked on in the AMMT program and 21 across industry. Qualification by analogy or a 22 similar material or product form. Obviously there's 23 physics-based modeling or improved empirical models.

24 Chris will talk about material surveillance and 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

34 material monitoring programs. Certainly there's the 1

staggered qualification

approach, qualifying a

2 material for a certain design life and then extending 3

that as you capture some of that long-term data.

4 Other approaches that maybe don't benefit 5

industry as whole, but when there is a couple users 6

that have a specific niche application is limiting the 7

qualification approach to those specific temperatures 8

or operating environments. Certainly alternative code 9

qualifications. So maybe start in a non-safety 10 application, capture some of that operating 11 experience, and then qualify it for Class A service in 12 the future as well.

13 So those are just some of the examples.

14 And again, the way we at EPRI see this is that 15 qualification framework is not going to take just one 16 of these and run with it. It's going to have to be 17 kind of an across-the-board, an all-of-the-above 18 approach that pulls different aspects from each of 19 these again to be able to have reasonable assurance 20 that you have accounted for all the potential 21 degradation in that design.

22 So if you'd go to the next slide, please?

23 And so this is just a quick summary slide. I think 24 the key thing going forward is that we are continuing 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

35 with Argonne to pilot the framework, pulling in 1

multiple of those approaches, focused on qualifying 2

316 variants that have a significant amount of data 3

but aren't currently qualified in Section 3, Division 4

5 as well.

5 And so if we go to the next slide? So 6

that pilot is really an example of where we can engage 7

both codes and standards and regulatory bodies to 8

pilot some of these applications that folks like the 9

AMMT program and others have developed.

10 And so a lot of that work has been focused 11 on wrought product forms. And that's not to say that 12 they aren't applicable to advanced manufacturing 13 methods. And if you've heard me or others at EPRI 14 talk, we have a lot of work ongoing focused on 15 qualification or additive processes in Section 3, 16 Division 1, as well as environmental degradation 17 including powder bed fusion, wire arc additive, 18 PM-HIP, advanced welding techniques like electron beam 19 welding. And so as we've kind of developed those for 20 the light water applications or low-temperature 21 applications we're starting to set our sights more on 22 those high-temperature advanced non-light water 23 applications.

24 And so one area that our members at EPRI 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

36 and industry have really been pushing us is focusing 1

on gas metal arc-directed energy deposition, or wire 2

arc additive. And so here are some examples of some 3

of the work that we've been doing focused on the 4

Division 1 qualification.

5 But if you go to the next slide, what 6

we're really trying to do is how do we accelerate that 7

qualification for Division 5 or high-temperature 8

applications? So for those that haven't been engaged 9

on the additive side of things in ASME, Section 3, 10 Division 1, the light water reactor or low-temperature 11 code, is nearing approval for additive manufacturing 12 across various code books. And it really relies on 13 what we call a bracketed qualification approach, which 14 is we're permitting the use of the design parameters 15 based on a corresponding material, so that wrought 16 product form, using bases from the weld metal from 17 existing materials. And again, this is for 18 time-independent service.

19 But as we look to Division 5 and 20 high-temperature applications, there's no specific 21 actions working on DED. As Meimei alluded to, the 22 AMMT program has been focused on powder bed fusion as 23 well as some work on PM-HIP for high-temperature 24 service. And those low-temperature rules -- the rules 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

37 were probably nearer those of low-temperature 1

applications, but the real question is how do we 2

extend those rules to elevated temperature? And 3

that's really where the big gap is. So that's railway 4

where the current focus is on this specific project.

5 So looking at the next slide, our approach 6

at EPRI is rather than to qualify that as a new 7

material -- because treating DED or additive weld 8

metal build-up, which is -- really all it is is wire 9

arc welding -- will be really expensive and 10 time-consuming, right? And so if you look at the way 11 Division 5 treats conventional welded structures, you 12 take a base metal, known design curves -- and 13 typically there's a knock-down strength reduction 14 factor applied to that base metal design stress for 15 y o u r w e l d m e n t c o n s t r u c t i o n.

16 And so what we're trying to do is kind of take 17 that same approach and that -- even though 316 weld 18 metal is used in both cases there's really not 19 technical basis for the high-temperature additive 20 design rules.

21 So going to the next slide, to kind of go 22 in a little bit more details, we are trying to apply 23 that stress reduction factor. And what we call it is 24 the additive manufacturing strength reduction factor 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

38 approach. And so using a combination of available 1

creep data on weld metal, supplementing it with new 2

creep data on actual additive builds -- again kind of 3

that approach to say this is a similar material -- and 4

being able to create a design stress allowable based 5

on those wrought-equivalent and weldment data that's 6

already available in industry rather than trying to 7

supplement entire Section 2, Appendix 5 set of data 8

requirements to add DED or an additive process as a 9

brand new material. And so we really see this as a 10 way to really accelerate the approach with a 11 combination of a lot of existing field and lab data 12 coupled with some additional additive manufacturing 13 processes as part of that.

14 And so next slide, please? Real quickly, 15 just one example is -- this is where we've kind of 16 focused on a lot of the 316H data and focusing on that 17 Division 5 qualification as I mentioned. So we really 18 focused on qualifying -- or excuse me, capturing a lot 19 of the relevant data for 316 weldments using different 20 filler metals, both 316H fillers as well as 6182 21 following that ASME time-independent approach in terms 22 of bracketed qualification and then doing testing on 23 those qualification blocks.

24 And so being able to leverage the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

39 extensive database of wrought 316H weld metal creep 1

rupture data coupled with the data on some limited 2

316H DED builds, being able to package that data 3

together and bring that forward within Division 5.

4 Next slide? And so just a real quick 5

summary. Our members here at EPRI, in the energy 6

industry, and the nuclear industry really see 7

large-scale DED as being a commercially mature 8

process. Other industries are already implementing it 9

and deploying it. And even in Section 3, Nuclear 10 Applications for Time-Independent Service, we're very 11 nearing adoption in multiple book sections.

12 And so looking at the time-dependent 13 service we need to focus on is there a way, kind of 14 using that equivalency approach with the stress 15 reduction or strength reduction factors to accelerate 16 that qualification and not treat it as a brand new 17 process or a brand new manufacturing technique.

18 So really our research is focused on 19 applying that qualification approach, piloting it, but 20 also coming up with the fundamental R&D to understand 21 the process-structure-property-performance linkage and 22 then have that as a workable qualification approach.

23 And next slide? And I'll turn things over 24 to Chris.

25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

40 MR. WAX: Yes, Marc, I appreciate it.

1 I'll run through my slides real quick here 2

for us. Marc did a good job discussion our material 3

qualification approaches from a code perspective.

4 Meimei gave a good overview of all the processes for 5

deployment. My goal here is to talk about the things 6

that come from an environmental compatibility 7

perspective.

8 U.S. NRC put out the ISG that talks about 9

the information in the code doesn't quite cover 10 methods to evaluate deterioration as a result of 11 corrosion and service. So the goal there is to review 12 applicable design requirements including environmental 13 compatibility and monitoring programs for ensuring 14 integrity of these systems and these advanced 15 reactors.

16 So we can go onto the next slide. This is 17 just a culmination slide that shows all sorts of 18 different inputs that go into the process of materials 19 validation and deployment. That includes materials 20 qualification approaches in the code for mechanical 21 properties and incorporates a number of items here 22 from an environmental radiation effects to take into 23 account.

24 By no means does this mean each one of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

41 these boxes has to be fulfilled and identified and 1

filled out before you can deploy a material, however 2

identifying reasonable assurance of understanding of 3

material degradation mechanisms is a big piece of 4

validation for material deployment.

5 I'll go onto the next one because this is 6

kind of sums up everything on a slide here. We talk 7

materials management here at EPRI. That's everything 8

from material qualification to operational programs 9

for inspection and monitoring. We have what I'll 10 consider the -- for lack of better terms, the luxury 11 of the design phase opportunities with these advanced 12 reactors to look at degradation mechanisms on the 13 front end where we did a lot of learning on the 14 operating experience and for the current light water 15 fleet.

16 That being said, I think we are doing the 17 best-case approach opportunity for identifying these 18 mechanisms, assessing impact of degradation from those 19 mechanisms, and then making some decisions on whether 20 or not it can be designed out through geometry changes 21 and material changes, operating parameter changes, or 22 just a general change of the SSC to mitigate the 23 concern.

24 Looking back on all that, that's really 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

42 the design phase discussion that's occurring in the 1

industry with the advanced reactor developers. The 2

DOE Is obviously doing work to assess this. EPRI's 3

got some opportunities of projects and tasks ongoing.

4 Some of those tasks include our material degradation 5

matrices, which is built off of from the light water 6

fleet. It's a framework and a process that helps us 7

identify these degradations and get a state of 8

knowledge and general understanding of how to 9

prioritize needs to close gaps for degradations.

10 We are utilizing a similar approach for 11 these advanced reactors on the front end.

12 After we identify some of those mechanisms 13 for these advanced reactor environments, the next 14 phase which is ongoing for certain developers and 15 ongoing for the industry is screening and assessing 16 those mechanisms for impacts to that given reactor 17 environment and again determining whether or not you 18 can make some decisions to design those out in the 19 up-front phase.

20 Once the reactor developer's gone through 21 their decision making process and has valid inputs for 22 material deployment they validate through reasonable 23 assurance that that material is going to withstand the 24 integrity pieces of following deployment. And when 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

43 you are in an area where there is augmentation 1

required, you can't design out a degradation. You 2

know it's a degradation that will occur or could 3

possibly occur in your reactor environment. There's 4

operational programs that are out there for in-service 5

inspection, monitoring, and surveillance, which is all 6

culminated in ASME Section 11, Division 2, or the 7

Reliability Integrity Management Program.

8 So that's one of those opportunities where 9

we have the ability to come to agreement on reasonable 10 assurance for material deployment and then utilize our 11 approach for monitoring, inspection, surveillance, or 12 planning for replacement during the operational phase 13 to validate integrity of these materials along the 14 way.

15 So I sped through that piece. I would go 16 on -- we'll go onto the next slide and kind of 17 culminate here -- one more -- on our technical 18 advisory group that EPRI is working building and 19 maintaining for advanced reactor material deployment.

20 On the left side of this slide you see a 21 number of tasks that are either completed or ongoing 22 at EPRI all the way back to materials gap analyses 23 that we're doing for different reactor environments.

24 That fed into a materials development road map that is 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

44 fed into our material degradation matrices. You can 1

see our molten salt reactor and sodium fast reactor in 2

progress. High-temperature gas reactors, scoped, and 3

lead-cooled fast reactors are a future project for us.

4 All the outputs of that will feed into our 5

technical advisory group where we will incorporate 6

input from industry stakeholders including folks from 7

DOE, AMMT, and advanced reactor developers and beyond 8

to align on qualification data gaps and environmental 9

compatibility concerns, which will then define our 10 strategic direction setting and prioritization for 11 advanced reactor materials deployment road map, which 12 leads into executing -- or developing and executing 13 test plans to close any gaps that have been identified 14 as priorities to assist in material deployments and 15 long-term operation.

16 I'll move on with Marc closing out here.

17 And we can turn it back over to Marc and then we'll go 18 from there.

19 MR. ALBERT: Yes, and so I think one last 20 take-away that EPRI wants to leave everybody is this 21 is a holistic approach in terms of qualification and 22 it kind of takes more than just one organization to go 23 about this. So I applaud conversations like this and 24 the NRC's effort with the ADVANCE Act. And this is 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

45 just an example that you don't have to get into the 1

details, but where EPRI and DOE and industry across 2

both manufacturers, material suppliers, extruders, and 3

product forms including casting houses work together 4

to qualify INCONEL 740H for advanced ultra super 5

critical CO2 plants.

6 And I think that the big takeaway is that 7

the collaboration is key. And being able to kind of 8

pilot these approaches, these accelerated 9

qualification approaches to get to not just 10 qualification in terms of having all that data, but 11 the actual large-scale plant demonstrations is really 12 critical and is one of the key pieces needed to 13 accelerate the deployment of some of these materials 14 in nuclear applications. So thank you. Appreciate 15 it.

16 MR. IYENGAR: Thanks, Marc and Chris. I 17 did want to mention that because we have ample time 18 for discussion between the NRC and industry 19 participants, DOE, and EPRI pertaining to the topic of 20 discussions and the presentations today, we are 21 allowing a little bit of flexibility for speakers to 22 go beyond 15 minutes. But don't take too much longer.

23 The other thing I wanted to mention was if 24 you do have questions, we have a discussion session as 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

46 mentioned, as well as a public Q&A. So please hold 1

until that time your questions.

2 So we'll now go to the next speaker from 3

Westinghouse, Dr. Zefeng Yu will talk about material 4

qualification for the eVinci microreactor.

5 PARTICIPANT: One second to share -- all 6

right, I think we're ready to go.

7 MR. YU: All right. So, hi. My name is 8

Zefeng, I am a Material Engineer from Westinghouse.

9 So today, I'm going to present our generic material 10 qualification for the eVinci Microreactor. Next, 11 please.

12 So, here's the agenda for my presentation 13 today. First, I will provide an overview of our 14 microreactor design, then I will go over our generic 15 material qualification roadmap, then at a high level 16 I will talk about our metallic qualification and the 17 challenges that we have faced along the way, and then 18 I will also touch on the graphite, and last but not 19 least we will also show some of our ongoing testing 20 programs as well as licensing activities which are 21 part of the NRC pre-application engagement. Next, 22 please.

23 So, our eVinci Microreactor is designed to 24 be a 15 megawatts thermal neutron spectrum reactor 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

47 that can transfer high temperature heat from the 1

reactor core through the heat pipes and a primary heat 2

exchanger to an open-air Brayton power conversion 3

system.

4 So, the reactor core is enclosed within a 5

canister that is filled with inert gas, and the core 6

consists of segmented and repeated graphite blocks, 7

and each blocks are made of those hexagonal unit cells 8

which contains channels for fuel, heat pipes, and the 9

shut down rods. Our core is surrounded by a thick 10 radial reflector that houses the control drums, and 11 the shielding is used to attenuate radiation to 12 protect personnels and public during the operation and 13 transportation. Next, please.

14 So, our microreactor uses many different 15 type of materials, both metallic and non-metallic, but 16 here is our overall material qualification roadmap.

17 So, our qualification strategy starts by following the 18 ASME code as well as the Reg Guides. So, we utilized 19 the permitted materials in the code as well as the 20 material properties for design analysis, and we also 21 considered regulatory requirements based on several 22 Reg Guides that published in recent years.

23 So, if we cannot find the material 24 properties in the code, then we will go through the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

48 literature, we will codify the existing datas from 1

literature, and do the literature review to identify 2

any material knowledge gaps and to determine if we 3

need to do experimental testing.

4 So, after identifying those gaps it comes 5

to the stage where we actually conduct the experiment.

6 So, at Westinghouse we have a large testing programs 7

that covers both the components as well as fundamental 8

material properties, so in general our testing 9

programs will cover the baseline material properties 10 as well as assessing any degradation effects on the 11 material. So, that including the aging, radiation, 12 oxidation, and material compatibility.

13 So, our current design is actually focused 14 on the design and construction of the nuclear test 15 reactor at INL. So, the initial testing results and 16 findings from literature will be used to create 17 material manuals that will be used for the design 18 input for the NTR. So, after the construction and 19 operation of the NTR, we will do another round of 20 reassessment of the material properties and identify 21 any remaining gaps left, and then determine if we need 22 to do additional testing.

23 So, that actually bring us to the last 24 stage where we will incorporate any additional testing 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

49 results or findings from literature into our material 1

manual, which will be used as the final design input 2

for our commercial reactor. Next, please.

3 So, in this slide I want to briefly touch 4

on our high temperature material qualification for the 5

metallic -- probably -- primarily, it's guided by the 6

ASME code and the Reg Guides, and in general we are 7

using Division 5 material where possible based on the 8

allowable temperature ranges. But there are metallic 9

components that we do have to use material that are 10 not listed in the code, or they may go beyond the 11 temperature limit.

12 So, for those type of material, we will 13 codify them based on the Division 5 non-mandatory 14 appendix HBB-Y that provides the guidance for the 15 metallic material developments and testing. Overall, 16 our testing plans and the specific testing matrix will 17 be developed based on the justified needs for the 18 design. And we partnered with universities, National 19 Labs, commercial vendors, as well as perform internal 20 testings at our own labs.

21 Last but not least, we are also going to 22 codify the existing data based on the ASME NQA-1 23 Subpart 4.2.3. Next, please.

24 So, so far we have identified two major 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

50 points for the challenges here. First one is, we 1

think the environmental effects is a major challenge, 2

because it is not explicitly addressed in the Division 3

5 for metals. So, actually the owner's responsibility 4

to consider how we can incorporate those degradation 5

due to the environmental effects into our design 6

analysis.

7 So, at Westinghouse we have conduct both 8

the Phenomena Identification and Ranking Table, as 9

well as the FMEA to assess how those degradation will 10 affect the component level as well as all material 11 properties.

12 Then, the second bullet point is related 13 to the high temperature testing. This is, obviously, 14 critical to codify materials to use for high 15 temperature reactors, but it is very challenging to 16 codify new materials which are not in the code 17 already. And despite the code for meeting three times 18 or five times the extrapolation of creep data, it's 19 still going to take several years to obtain any 20 significant creep data to qualify the material or to 21 validate creep models.

22 And we do recognize there are many 23 advanced creep testing methodology out there as well 24 as advanced creep models that you can use, which 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

51 potentially can accelerate the whole qualification 1

process. However, their acceptability by NRC is 2

really not clear to us, so we are not certain, and 3

it's kind of a risk for us to use those advanced 4

methodology to codify our material, so far.

5 And that bring us to the ask. We have a 6

ask to NRC, and we hope that NRC to endorse the 7

Division 5 HBB-Y for material qualification, since 8

Westinghouse is generically using the HBB-Y for our 9

qualification. And will help the -- the endorsement 10 will represent the agreement that the approach is 11 acceptable, without the need to add new materials into 12 the code first. Next, please.

13 So, I also want to touch on the graphite 14 qualification. We are following the Division 5 15 HHA-2200 which provides guidance for graphite 16 qualified material qualification, and based on the 17 codes it requires the generation of material data 18 sheets that include the manufacture and material data, 19 the original material data, and oxidized material 20 data.

21 And we also recognize that, unlike the 22 metallic materials, the code doesn't have any 23 permissible graphite grades. So, this means that a 24 vendor like Westinghouse, if we want to do -- if we 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

52 want to use the graphite for certain components, then 1

we have to codify it either by codify throughout the 2

NQA-1 Subpart 4.2.3 or we have to do our internal 3

testing to get the data.

4 So, at Westinghouse we do have a very 5

comprehensive testing programs to acquire the 6

manufactured graphite material properties. So, we do 7

thanks to DOE-funded programs, because those programs 8

generates a lot of available radiation data for 9

variety type of graphite grades, and Westinghouse has 10 access to those publicly available data, and we are 11 actively using those datas for codification. However, 12 we do -- identified several gaps among those data, and 13 we have to establish statistical analysis methods to 14 interpolate and extrapolate the original material 15 behaviors to the reactor condition of our own 16 interest.

17 So, our ask to the NRC about the graphite 18 scope is actually related to the graphite degradation 19 models that the NRC has published in one of their 20 reports. So, the NRC, in that report, has 21 demonstrated the application of both the thermal 22 mechanical model and oxidation model for the IG-110, 23 and published all the necessary material properties 24 and parameterizations that it used for the model.

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53 So, we think it would be benefit for the 1

industry if NRC can show public the applicability of 2

those models to other graphite grades as well, and 3

also publish all the corresponding material properties 4

and parameterizations that they need for other 5

graphite grades. Next, please.

6 So, in this slide I want to present some 7

of the ongoing testing programs at Westinghouse. This 8

is just a tip of the iceberg, we have a lot more 9

testing programs, but I want to show the major three 10 testing programs that we have.

11 First one is related to the heat pipe 12 developments. So, at Westinghouse we have the 13 capability to testing high temperature for the time 14 independent and time dependent material properties.

15 And the second one is, we are assessing the material 16 compatibility, currently focusing on the long term and 17 high temperature sodium compatibility with heat pipe 18 tubings and wick materials. Then last, as I mentioned 19 before, we have a very comprehensive testing program 20 for graphite, and we are actively testing for the room 21 temperature and the high temperature mechanical 22 properties as well as thermal properties.

23 And I do want to point out that 24 Westinghouse will have the capability to test graphite 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

54 material properties at temperature higher than 1,000 1

Celsius. Next, please.

2 So, in this slide we summarized all the 3

white papers that we have submitted to the NRC as part 4

of the pre-application engagement, to support our 5

licensing activity. So, I want to put out the Item 6

Number Ten which is about the composite material 7

qualification and testing, and Item Number 14 which is 8

about the component qualification, and in the 9

component qualification white paper also contains 10 information related to material. Next, please.

11 So, this is our last slide which we 12 summarized all the topical reports that have submitted 13 to NRC so far, and more are on the way. So, we are 14 still working on the composite material qualification 15 as well as metallic and graphite topical reports, and 16 we are also working on the component qualification 17 methodology topic report. And those will be submitted 18 to NRC in future. Next, please.

19 So that's all for my presentation today, 20 thank you very much.

21 MR. IYENGAR: Thank you. So, our next 22 speaker will be Craig Gerardi, he'll be talking about 23 an innovative approach for reactor materials. Are you 24 ready?

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55 (No audible response.)

1 MR. SAVARA: So, we do have Craig online, 2

and if you can unmute yourself, you should be able to, 3

Craig, and you may use your camera as well if you'd 4

like to. You do have the privileges, Craig, you 5

should be able to click unmute. You tried it on your 6

end, Craig?

7 (No audible response.)

8 MR. SAVARA: Should see a microphone icon 9

at the top-right.

10 (No audible response.)

11 MR. SAVARA: I'm going to disable the mic 12 and re-enable it, maybe there is an issue. Can you 13 try now, Craig, please?

14 (No audible response.)

15 MR. SAVARA: Okay, we do have an issue, 16 Craig. Maybe we can have you call in, do you have the 17 phone number to call in, in your email?

18 (No audible response.)

19 MR. SAVARA: You are not able to unmute on 20 your computer.

21 MR. IYENGAR: Ashi, can you unmute --

22 (Simultaneous speaking.)

23 MR. SAVARA: I've given Craig the 24 privileges, I don't have any way to --

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56 MR. IYENGAR: Don't have a way to --

1 MR. SAVARA: To force an unmute.

2 MR. IYENGAR: So Craig, you want to --

3 well, what we can do is, we can give you a little bit 4

of time, there's going to be a break after your --

5 after this. So, if he can have -- if we can switch 6

speakers to make up for that, I wanted to ask if Luke 7

is available, Luke Andrew from Aalo?

8 (No audible response.)

9 MR. IYENGAR: Oh, there you are.

10 MR. SAVARA: Yeah, he is.

11 MR. IYENGAR: He's right here. So, maybe, 12 can you go instead? And I'll give Craig --

13 (Simultaneous speaking.)

14 MR. ANDREW: I can.

15 (Simultaneous speaking.)

16 MR. SAVARA: And so, while I bring Luke's 17 presentation up, Craig, if you can hear me, I did 18 email you -- you got my phone number there, the Teams 19 phone number. Give me a call --

20 MR. IYENGAR: Ashi?

21 MR. SAVARA: Yes?

22 MR. IYENGAR: Ashi, we can do it during 23 the break.

24 MR. SAVARA: That's fine --

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57 (Simultaneous speaking.)

1 MR. SAVARA: I'm just trying to --

2 (Simultaneous speaking.)

3 MR. IYENGAR: Right now Luke is on.

4 MR. SAVARA: Right, I was waiting for --

5 (Simultaneous speaking.)

6 MR. IYENGAR: Luke is going to talk about 7

advanced manufacturing and qualification approach for 8

intermediate heat exchanges. Luke?

9 MR. ANDREW: Yeah, go ahead to the next 10 slide. So yeah, today we're going to talk about Aalo, 11 and then we're going to talk about intermediate heat 12 exchangers in Aalo's design. We're going to go over 13 that, we're going to go over the manufacturing 14 processes for PCHEs and PCHE's role in Aalo-1, our 15 reactor design, and then we'll go over our technology 16 maturation for PCHEs.

17 So, in case you guys have forgotten, Aalo, 18 we recognize that there is a huge gap in between 19 getting nuclear reactors out into the market. So, 20 current nuclear reactors take, you know, ten years 21 plus to get one gigawatts of electric deployed, so 22 we're going to try to fix that. Next slide, please.

23 We are focusing on factory manufacturing 24 and rapid deployment of our reactors through our 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

58 factor that we built, we're starting in Austin, Texas 1

-- we did deploy our factory a couple weeks ago in 2

Austin, there's some videos on LinkedIn for that if 3

you want to see how our factory looks like and what 4

we've been doing there. Next slide, please.

5 And here is what we're deploying, this is 6

our pod, our pod of five reactors and our reactor, the 7

Aalo-1 reactor, and that's how we're going -- we're 8

going to be building this -- these reactors within 9

that factory, to deploy massive -- one gigawatt per 10 year is our goal, within the next few years. So, next 11 slide, please.

12 And this is our business model, we're 13 going to be attaching these pods to a prime customer, 14 the data centers. What you can see in the picture 15 there is a data center, that's a rendering of a data 16 center that is currently being deployed today in the 17 market, and you can see our pod's attached to that 18 data center to power that.

19 One thing that is to note, that half of 20 those reactors will actually power that data center.

21 This rendering does show double the capacity for 22 power, so only two pods can handle that entire data 23 center. Next slide, please.

24 So, our pods are built with this kind of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

59 a unit where our confinement, we have a lower SC 1

module, or a steel composite module, steel and 2

concrete together, and then we have an upper SC module 3

as well, to protect the reactor.

4 Our structures are independent, so we're 5

going to have a

secondary annex where our 6

sodium-to-steam loop is located, and then we also have 7

the reactor building and that contains all of our 8

safety components. And then we have air-based cooling 9

within that reactor building to have auxiliary cooling 10 during normal operations, and then we also have 11 passive cooling that's always on, that will handle the 12 safety related decay heat removal. Next slide, 13 please.

14 Within this reactor, like I said, we've 15 got our safety features. We've got our control which 16 is going to be motor-driven with our control blades, 17 and we also, for our backup, we'll have the 18 gravity-driven control rod scram. And we're going to 19 be containing our radionuclides in our coolant within 20 a low-pressure system, there's going to be no 21 penetrations in the reactor vessel wall, and our guard 22 vessel is our secondary containment.

23 And we're going to be cooling our reactor 24 with natural circulation within the reactor, and again 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

60 the auxiliary air-cooling through natural and forced 1

circulation, and then the passive air-cooling which is 2

always operational that handles our safety loads.

3 Next slide, please.

4 So, what is printed circuit heat 5

exchanger? It is a highly compact and efficient type 6

of heat exchanger that uses 80 percent smaller space 7

than your typical shell-and-tube heat exchanger. And 8

it's used in high temperature and high pressure 9

applications currently, like in the oil and gas 10 industry and other industries, but we're going to be 11 using it for our intermediate heat exchanger.

12 It's got a pressure capability about to 13 1,000 bar and a temperature range all the way up to 14 900 degrees C. It's an inherently robust design 15 because it's a high-integrity -- its high integrity of 16 the construction with plate-type exchangers, and it's 17 flexible because there's no restrictions on the fluid 18 pressure drop. Next slide, please.

19 What this is going to be made out of, is 20 we're trying to get 316L approved for this printed 21 circuit heat exchanger. What you do is, you stack a 22 whole bunch of plates, using either photolithographic 23 masking, a chemical etch, or a mill to mill in the 24 flow channels within each of the plates.

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61 All of those plates are then stacked on 1

top of each other, stuck into a vacuum hot furnace 2

under a large pressure and temperature and time, and 3

then atomic diffusion occurs across the plate 4

interfaces and it basically creates a solid block.

5 There's no welding, it just melts into each other.

6 This creates a -- and there's no joints or seals 7

within this, it's just all metallic containment of the 8

two fluids that exchange the heat. Next slide.

9 The role of the PCHE in our design is, 10 we're going to use it for our intermediate heat 11 exchanger that isolates the secondary sodium from the 12 primary sodium, and if there was to be a leak, we will 13 have higher pressure on the secondary side so that the 14 secondary sodium will, quote/unquote, leak into the 15 primary sodium.

16 The critical characteristics of our PCHE 17 are, we need to ensure that the postulated leak across 18 the IHX will be within the acceptable limits with the 19 radionuclide release design limits, and then we also 20 need to make sure that it's capable of transferring 21 the heat load during normal operations. Next slide.

22 So here's the problem, the code does not 23 allow for 316L currently, however -- or diffusion 24 bonding, that's what we call, putting it into the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

62 vacuum furnace. Let's start with diffusion bonding.

1 Diffusion bonding is normal for Section VIII, we want 2

to get that process incorporated into Section III.

3 There is a -- we're seeking, actually next week there 4

is a code committee, ASME code committee, in Salt 5

Lake, and we're going to be sending representatives 6

there to seek an interpretation to verify if diffusion 7

bonding will be allowed in Section III.

8 Also, within the 316L problem, there is a 9

code case that allows 316L to be used all the way up 10 to 1,200 degree F, that was actually implemented into 11 the code in 2023. And we need to verify that, in that 12 code case, it specifies that the properties for 316L 13 are time independent properties.

14 So, we want to verify that to ensure that 15 we can use that for our printed circuit heat exchanger 16 and get the 316L added into our -- the ASME code. If 17 it's not, we'll have to get the tables generated and 18 all that stuff, to make sure that they'll -- 316L 19 treatment fatigue and data tables can be incorporated 20 into the code, as well. Next slide.

21 So, our technology maturation plan. We 22 are building a, as you could call it, a scrappy Aalo-0 23 system where we're going to be dealing with sodium in 24 a non-nuclear environment, with electric heaters and 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

63 everything. And within there, we'll start our first 1

process of testing a printed circuit heat exchanger 2

with the sodium-to-sodium interaction.

3 And then we have an -- the Aalo-X reactor 4

that is going to be a DOE-authorized reactor at the 5

Idaho National Labs, and that will be the first 6

reactor that will run with these printed circuit heat 7

exchangers in a nuclear application. And then once 8

we've got the testing and the demonstration of the 9

features and the safety functions within Aalo-X, we 10 then plan to implement it into our pods, which will be 11 the NRC Licensed Facilities that will go out across 12 the country, or world. Next slide, please.

13 So, in order to do that, within Aalo-0 we 14 need to verified that the PCHE performs its intended 15 functions, we need to demonstrate that the operability 16 of -- and the performance of the heat exchanger as a 17 component is what it's -- we analyzed it to be, and 18 then we need to confirm that it's structural and 19 leak-tight integrity, making sure that there's no 20 leaks, and then we need to verify that it will 21 transfer the amount of heat that we need it to 22 transfer within the zero test facility. Next slide.

23 Once we get that, we can then implement it 24 into Aalo-X, and again we'll have to verify that it 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

64 operates just fine through the same thing that it did 1

in Aalo-0, potentially through temporary 2

configurations as well, to test the different design 3

conditions to verify safety. And then, also making 4

sure that the heat transfer capability, because it'll 5

be a larger design. And then we have to make sure the 6

flow rates and the inlet and outlet temperatures are 7

the same as we analyzed, as well as verify that it has 8

a solid structure and there is no leaks. And then 9

verify that the functional interface is connecting 10 with the other systems, as well. Next slide.

11 Oh, I guess that's it. Thanks for your 12 time.

13 MR. IYENGAR: Thanks so much, Luke. I 14 think we are over achieving here. In any case, we 15 will have a little bit of a break, about 15 minutes --

16 I think we can afford a 15-minute break so people can 17 stretch and maybe attend to other business. We'll 18 convene -- reassemble at 2:35 p.m. Thank you.

19 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 20 off the record at 2:20 p.m. and resumed at 2:35 p.m.)

21 MR.

IYENGAR:

We're starting the 22 presentations again. Thank you for your patience.

23 Now Craig, you're good now, right?

24 MR. GERARDI: I think so, yes.

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65 MR. IYENGAR: Great. So the next 1

presentation will be from Kairos Power, Craig Gerardi.

2 He's going to talk about integrated approach for 3

reactor materials. Go ahead, Craig.

4 MR. GERARDI: Okay. Thank you very much, 5

everyone, for your patience. Apologies for not being 6

able to speak earlier. I guess that's certainly the 7

benefit of being able to be in person. So thank you, 8

Luke, for kind of taking over.

9 But yes, you can go to -- so my name is 10 Craig Gerardi. I'm Vice President of Manufacturing at 11 Kairos Power. You can go to the next slide, please.

12 And so we always start our presentations off with our 13 mission. We really feel like it's an important reason 14 for why we're doing what we're doing.

15 And so our mission is to enable the 16 world's transition to clean energy while with the 17 ultimate goal of dramatically improving people's 18 quality of life while protecting the environment. In 19 order to do that, we need to make our technology 20 affordable and safe. And the materials qualification 21 efforts are certainly a big part of both of those 22 components, making technology affordable as well as 23 safe, of course. Okay. Next slide, please.

24 So most of you are probably familiar with 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

66 our reactors. But just kind of a quick recap of what 1

we call our KP-FHR.

So it's a

pool-type, 2

fluoride-salt cooled, high temperature reactor.

3 There's a pebble bed core surrounded by a 4

graphite reflector that really makes up the core 5

geometry. And there's a Lithium-7 enriched FLiBe 6

molten salt coolant. The low pressure reactor, we 7

operate basically at below one atmosphere essentially 8

gauge.

9 And our primary heat transport system is 10 FLiBe. The operating temperatures are between 550 11 Celsius and 650 Celsius. Fairly low flow rates and we 12 expect our maximum temperature to be well below 750 13 degrees Celsius.

14 Our materials are actually sort of boring, 15 at least for our first reactors. So we basically 16 specified graphite as our both kind of 17 encapsulating our fuel pebbles as well as our 18 reflector materials, 316H for reactor vessels, base 19 metal. And we're planning on using 16-8-2 for our 20 weld filler metal for our first iterations.

21 We are -- and I'll talk a little bit about 22 this in the last slides is we are looking into 23 potentially Autogenous Electron Beam Welding of 316H 24 or later iterations of reactors but not for our first 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

67 license react which would be Hermes 1. For our power 1

reactors, again, not for our first reactor, we're 2

talking about a 20-year lifetime that will definitely 3

need continual qualification and efforts to get us 4

there, of course. A pretty low end of life radiation 5

for our vessel, basically structural materials. Next 6

slide, please.

7 Some of you may have seen this. It's also 8

a little bit of an eye chart. But we call it our 9

snake chart actually. Basically, we start from the 10 lower left talking about our iterative approach to 11 commercial reactor deployment and really it applies to 12 basically everything that we do, including our 13 materials efforts as well.

14 The first bottom line there describes our 15 Engineering Test Unit series. So these are 16 non-nuclear but essentially full scale FLiBe tests 17 that we have. Either it's completed or in process.

18 So the Engineering Unit 1.0 was built, 19 operated, and decommissioned in our Albuquerque 20 facility. So that added about 2,000 hours0 days <br />0 hours <br />0 weeks <br />0 months <br /> of FLiBe 21 time. It had all the representatives, equipment, 22 pumps, and reactor control equipment and that type of 23 thing.

24 Of course, it was unfueled. So it was 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

68 just electrically heated up to just under 650 degrees 1

Celsius. That is now gone and we're in the process of 2

building the second iteration of that, ETU 2.0.

3 A lot more of that is being built with our 4

in-house manufacturing capabilities. And hopefully, 5

later this year or early next year, it will go online 6

and also be a non-nuclear FLiBe system. A lot 7

simplification and modularity has been included in 8

that one.

9 And then our ETU 3.0 is a little bit 10 different. But basically, it's also in process and 11 being built and will be deployed in Tennessee where 12 the next step for our nuclear deployments will also be 13 located. So I mentioned Hermes.

14 We also have Hermes 2. These are our test 15 demonstration reactor series that both have received 16 construction permits with NRC. And we're currently 17 working on essentially starting with some of the first 18 pages actually for construction for Hermes 1.0.

19 Hermes 1, we do plan to use gas and arc 20 welding of 316H with that 16-8-2 filler metal. The 21 materials qualification for this is all underway.

22 I'll talk a little bit about it in the next slide.

23 And then after we get through Hermes 1 and 24 2.0, the plan is to go towards commercial deployment 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

69 and eventually a commercial fleet. Perhaps sometimes 1

in there, we may adopt electron beam welding which is 2

still being evaluated. Okay. Next slide, please.

3 This is actually my last slide.

4 So it's really just kind of -- it's not a 5

request of NRC. It's more some updates as well as 6

just topics of interest that may find mutual 7

collaboration across the organizations represented 8

here. So we are -- as I mentioned, we're planning on 9

using the 16-8-2 filler metal for Hermes 1.

10 We are in the process of extending that 11 code case to higher temperatures than is currently 12 allowed in Section 3 to 5. We have a number of 13 internal testing programs to justify this and been 14 involved in the working groups on that matter.

15 There's a project associated with this for ASME.

16 On the local vacuum electron beam welding, 17 I mentioned this a little bit. We have completed 18 technical assessment. We're looking at vetting some 19 of our initial test plans through the ASME Allowable 20 Stress Committee this month and potentially initiate 21 some more formal materials testing afterwards.

22 We do have some combined effects testing 23 with the MIT Research Reactor looking at our five 24 molten salt as well as radiation graphing 316H, the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

70 combined effects there. This is all for Hermes, 1

Hermes 1 -- I'm sorry, Hermes 2. Beyond that, there's 2

interest in newer alloys.

3 We chose 316H basically since it already 4

exists in the code. It's commercially available. And 5

we purchased heaps of 316H for our non-nuclear tests.

6 We're able to get it.

7 So for some of the newer alloys that we're 8

looking at, maybe 709 for heat resistance, a halfway 9

in type alloy. We have some collaborations going on 10 with Oak Ridge and then also looking at helium 11 embrittlement as a concern. So looking for longer 12 lifetimes.

13 So looking at other stainless steel 14 options for that. There are some interesting 15 opportunities to pursue solid state welding. So like 16 friction-based methods to for head and vessel 17 penetrations. So that would be something that we'd 18 need to do through development, material 19 qualifications as well.

20 And for the additive

topic, we're 21 generally not pursuing additive for safety related 22 structures or components but we're not ruling it out, 23 of course. But right now, looking at maybe a little 24 bit of

316H, the presentations

earlier, the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

71 development work by the DOE labs and EPRI are very 1

interesting on 316H as well as the wire arc evidence.

2 And so we've been testing a little bit of additive 3

components in our non-nuclear iterations as well. And 4

yeah, I believe that's my last slide. Thank you very 5

much for the opportunity to present.

6 MR. SAVARA: Thank you so much, Craig.

7 The next speaker is from TerraPower. Bridgette 8

Hannifin will talk about metallic materials 9

development for the Natrium advanced reactor.

10 Bridgette?

11 MS HANNIFIN: So go to the next slide. A 12 little bit about the Natrium reactor, we certainly get 13 a lot of questions about sort of sizing a medium type 14 reactor. You can see here a single unit site proposal 15 similar to what we're building in Kemmerer, Wyoming, 16 southwest part of the state.

17 You can see the nuclear island and the 18 energy island are separated with decoupling boundary.

19 As you're looking at that in the center portion of our 20 nuclear island is where we're focused for our high 21 temperature materials. We do have some higher 22 temperatures as well as you're looking at the energy 23 storage tanks highlighted in the middle of there in 24 yellow. Go to the next slide.

25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

72 The materials that we're using are sort of 1

again in that moderate temperature range compared to 2

some of the other reactors we've been hearing from 3

today. So our primary and secondary systems are 4

sodium, again, low pressure, similar to what we've 5

been hearing from other advanced reactors today. On 6

the salt side, similar temperature range.

7 We're using 60-40 molten salt based on key 8

storage in solar plants. Looking in the next slide 9

about sort of our cross section of our reactor, you 10 can see here everything here is the center of the 11 reactor. As you're seeing the core, we have mainly 12 again you're hearing these high temperature materials 13 that are available in ASME during the material 14 selection.

15 So you're looking at 316H. You're looking 16 16-8-2 weld filler material which has a guard vessel, 17 2 and a quarter chrome moly, also off of ASME Section 18 III, Div. 5, which would work in that area is a pretty 19 limited selection of materials you can choose from and 20 that really drives a lot of the design. Moving out 21 from our reactor, you can see our piping and salt 22 sodium heat exchangers.

23 While these do have potentially broader 24 applications, we are still using commonalities. We're 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

73 seeing a lot of those same materials in use that the 1

industry is focusing on. Moving into a cross section 2

of our reactor, on the next slide, you can see there's 3

not a lot of space in here.

4 You can see here our

pump, our 5

intermediate heat exchangers. So one of the things 6

that I was transitioning from earlier in my career 7

working on loop type reactors is we don't have as much 8

access for inspection, monitoring type of walk down 9

activities. So we really think about things 10 differently when we're looking at how we're going to 11 look at the life of our reactor.

12 Going into the most important part, kind 13 of our advanced materials on the next slide is our 14 program roadmap. And this is driving a lot of our 15 material selection, our ability to take on new 16 materials and advanced manufacturing technologies. So 17 if you look here on the far left, the U.S. legacy 18 reactors is what we're basing most of our design on.

19 We're looking at PRISM and TWR development 20 within TerraPower. And sort of the idea being that 21 this has been done before. When we look at our DOE 22 legacy, the draw for us as we're laying out the 23 initial part of Natrium was if there is a new 24 manufacturing technology and new material, it really 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

74 has to show a high value for our demonstration plant 1

to take on that risk.

2 We have a short timeline in which to move 3

through design, fabrication, instruction. And these 4

new material programs take time. We've talked about 5

the amount of testing that needs to be done.

6 Then driving that back into your design 7

really compresses us on the ability to adopt new 8

technologies for new manufacturing applications.

9 Where we are right now is sort of in the middle of 10 this page which is our demonstration reactors. This 11 is a full size reactor.

12 And again, we're really looking how can we 13 keep the risk on this low and execute quickly in order 14 to build this reactor. And as we looking the future 15 projects, the commercial series 1 and 2, that's where 16 we're looking at different scaling as far as volume 17 projection and looking at evaluating are there 18 technologies that are coming in that could benefit the 19 commercialization of these additional reactors. We 20 start thinking of beyond one

unit, beyond 21 demonstrating and sort of waking up our supply chain 22 to be able to make these types of reactors.

23 And that really is a lot of what goes into 24 our selection of materials and our appetite for new 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

75 manufacturing technologies. We'll go to the next 1

slide. We do appreciate the work that's been done on 2

the code committees and with the DOE.

3 So this is a slide kind of outlining some 4

of the challenges for qualification of materials. And 5

you can see the citation on the bottom right. This 6

came from Mark Messner at ANL.

7 So we do see a good understanding of what 8

it takes to qualify materials up to the point of code 9

application. I just want to reiterate the challenge 10 that I'm taking it from there with just a lot of work 11 and bringing it into fabrication and construction. So 12 one of the examples of this that is worth talking 13 about is the HV 2800 fatigue testing. Go to the next 14 slide.

15 This is one that TerraPower brought to the 16 code committees kind of late 2023 identifying that 17 this test is identified for a bar or plate type 18 specimen. And really per the ASTM E 606, there's 19 warnings in there that using this for thinner type 20 materials. So as you look into our reactor, we have 21 plate. We have tubing. We have multiple different 22 types of product forms of various thicknesses.

23 Due to our lower pressure, we don't have 24 the same wall thickness as conventional nuclear. And 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

76 so this test is challenging for us because as we look 1

at the geometries that we're using, this test is being 2

required on every brought up material where it's 3

required by the code. We've been doing repeated 4

testing of this ASTM E 606.

5 It's a test that our raw material 6

suppliers are less familiar with. It's a test that 7

the geometry is difficult with on some of the product 8

forms that we're interested in. And so as we're 9

looking at that, we get thin wall type testing.

10 The ability of that to buckle and create 11 an invalid test could create difficulties. We're 12 ramping up our supply chain. So this is something as 13 we're looking at first you have to qualify the 14 material, get the data, do laboratory processes.

15 But then we need to transition to 16 something that we can ensure the material we're 17 getting and putting into our reactor is what we base 18 our data off, based our modeling, what we based our 19 analysis on. And so this is an example of trying to 20 bridge from the code which is ensuring the capability 21 of the data that we use into our design. But being 22 able to apply that as we scale these technologies, as 23 we go out and build these technologies and looking at 24 this done on every material, that's hundreds of places 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

77 that we'd be doing this testing.

1 So we're seeing some of the risk, 2

challenge, development on these fabrication 3

technologies is a key part of what we're trying to do 4

in the next few years. However, as we talked about, 5

there are other areas that we're interested in 6

developing. Everyone has kind of mentioned the same 7

thing, if you'll go to the next

slide, is 8

environmental testing.

9 So here's an example of our in-situ 10 mechanical testing capabilities. Due to the timeline 11 of testing versus design, all of our testing 12 facilities were designed and started to be built 13 before our preliminary design was complete. So this 14 is kind of a challenge that we have in trying to bring 15 new products to the market is that in order to scale 16 those up, we have to make predictions about the 17 testing requirements, predictions about the 18 temperature, the loading requirements, and even start 19 thinking about the materials we'll be placing into 20 these before we have all those answers for the design.

21 Now that we do have our preliminary 22 design, lining up the test schedules for completing 23 these results and lowering the risk as we incorporate 24 those into our analysis is what we're working on. So 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

78 you can see here we have a few different loops, 1

SoCCRaTes at Oregon State University and the SMT-3 2

loop at Argonne National Lab. What we're seeing is 3

having multiple labs doing multiple tests in sodium 4

gives us a good idea of the kind of variability that 5

we can see in sodium systems.

6 Obviously, we're a much larger scale. But 7

it is helpful for us to have these facilities 8

available and able to move parts through and learn 9

from a variety of different people and collaborate 10 across those different test programs. Similarly, if 11 you'll go to the next slide, for radiation, using 12 Department of Energy resources, you can kind of see 13 here what our campaigns are on structural materials 14 and weld materials. That's what my team focuses on.

15 Again, we're seeing those conventional 16 materials that are in the code. We're not trying to 17 take them to a new temperature range. We're not 18 trying to make modifications or new alloys.

19 We're doing the work just to qualify them 20 to the performance that we need for our reactor 21 outside of those code data sources. We also are 22 looking at additional areas around coatings and 23 surface treatments that we applied to our structural 24 materials and try to encapsulate that with usages 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

79 elsewhere in the plant. And then we also have some 1

development in advanced fuel cladding.

2 So you can see here that the dose range is 3

relatively low. However, it still does take time to 4

get these materials made, the testing done, and get 5

those into our design. So we're looking at new 6

materials, some of the challenges I've had in other 7

industries when we're looking at things like additive 8

or base manufacturing and you have development of the 9

technology.

10 And if you're still in that growth phase 11 where you're learning more about the equipment, you're 12 still working on machine qualifications and making 13 changes there. You run out of timeline to do this 14 type of testing based on the schedule we have for 15 deployment. So as we're looking into sort of 16 challenges, next steps, and where we see -- if you 17 want to go to the next slide.

18 The qualification process for new 19 materials is long compared to what we have for design 20 analysis and construction. So as we start looking at 21 what technologies are available, we looked at what was 22 at the (audio interference) looking for a couple of 23 years ago to finish a reactor in '23 time frame. So 24 as we look at developing new technologies, developing 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

80 new suppliers, we just sort of ran out of time on our 1

schedule to do that.

2 So we're really looking for lowering the 3

level of uncertainty on material development. So we 4

can understand really clearly what that pathway is and 5

also see what materials are available that we can 6

essentially pick up and use. Secondarily, we know the 7

nuclear industrial codes fully address all 8

environments and the time-temperature dependent 9

properties that we have for advanced reactors.

10 So again, that drives our testing time 11 frame. As we look at taking new steps, we know 12 equivalency to existing materials is difficult when 13 there's not a strong baseline of those materials in 14 play. So we appreciate the work that the DOE is doing 15 in trying to characterize things like powder bed 16 additive, try to establish a baseline, both for this 17 technology and for that testing that does enable kind 18 of future development.

19 But we don't have that to work with here.

20 And we're evaluating kind of new technologies are the 21 choices we want to make. We're working with what's 22 available today.

23 And finally, in-service inspection is 24 going to be different for a full type reactor and we 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

81 have limited access. So that's driving us away from 1

traditional inspection type technologies and more into 2

monitoring. This is sort of a big change too when you 3

think about material development is if we have the 4

ability to demonstrate that we have active type 5

response to what's going on in our materials, do we 6

understand how they're degrading versus pulling out 7

surveillance coupons, checking them over time and 8

trying to stay ahead any service in the reactor.

9 So that's kind of a difference for me. I 10 started my career in nuclear, went to aerospace, came 11 back to nuclear. Aerospace takes a different approach 12 to monitoring, and that's really what TerraPower is 13 also trying to do is, can you see the development of 14 our materials? Can we take action? Can we establish 15 those action levels?

16 Do we understand what monitoring 17 technologies are available and kind of develop those 18 alongside fabrication and design of our reactor. So 19 it's kind of where we see the focus on as what we're 20 looking for in the next few years developing these 21 reactors. Thanks.

22 MR.

IYENGAR:

Thank you so

much, 23 Bridgette. I think we're on time. So the last 24 presentation for today is from Radiant. Parker Buntin 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

82 would be talking about qualification materials, 1

metallic materials for colliders. Parker?

2 MR. BUNTIN: Everyone, good morning, good 3

afternoon. My name is Parker. I'm the lead materials 4

engineer here at Radiant. Today I'll be talking about 5

qualification of metallic materials for Kaleidos.

6 Next slide.

7 All right. Starting off what is Kaleidos, 8

Kaleidos is our mass produced high temperature gas 9

reactor. Specifically, this is a microreactor and a 10 1 megawatt electric, roughly 10 megawatt thermal 11 range. This is designed to be a drop in replacement 12 for diesel generators, and it's meant to be portable 13 so that we can support things like rapid delivery and 14 then pulling the unit back to waste processing 15 facility away from our customers to deal with the 16 refueling and waste management offsite from our 17 customers. Next slide.

18 Okay.

When we look at material 19 qualification, we consider a qualified material one 20 where there's sufficient technical basis for both the 21 materials and the components made of those materials 22 to fulfill their design requirements across their 23 design life. Put together a quick flowchart here. It 24 mimics qualification approaches that other reactor 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

83 developers are taking.

1 But to quickly walk through this, we start 2

with by identifying commercially available materials 3

for our desired applications where we think there's a 4

viable qualification pathway. We take a look to see 5

if there's a gap to justifying the technical and 6

qualification basis. If there's not, we can just 7

document it and we consider the material qualified.

8 If there is a gap, however, we'll look 9

into literature. In order of preference, we'll look 10 into things like established data for codes and 11 standards, handbooks, industry-wide databases and 12 other sources. We'll look for data from heritage use 13 in the nuclear industry as well as other industries 14 and then literature data at large from test reports 15 and articles and elsewhere.

16 If after that data review we can make a 17 sufficient technical justification for qualification 18 material, we will compile and qualify that data 19 through any of the four methods listed in the bottom 20 left of the screen. And then we'll document that 21 qualification basis. But if that literature does not 22 provide enough data or rationale, we'll have to go 23 perform testing. So kind of three main pathways to 24 qualification material per this flowchart. Next 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

84 slide.

1 So we're going to run through three 2

example materials that kind of walk through these 3

three pathways starting with 316H, stainless steel in 4

the forged material form. So 316H, we've heard 5

several people talk about it today. Also, stainless 6

steel has a higher carbon content which helps improve 7

creep and strength performance at elevated 8

temperature.

9 This is an improved Class A material per 10 Boiler Pressure Vessel Code Division -- or Section 11 III, Division 5. For elevated temperature service, 12 their material properties above 700 degrees C, some up 13 to 1,000, a lot to 800 degrees C. And the service 14 conditions that we're anticipating for our 316H 15 components, the temperature balance vary. But all are 16 within that boiler pressure vessel code envelope.

17 And we do plan to order this material per 18 ASME standards which provides provisions for sampling 19 and making material test coupons so we can validate 20 the mechanical and thermal properties in represented 21 environments. So we're still evaluating some of the 22 degradation mechanisms. But this is an example of a 23 material where it's very well understood and we think 24 there's a path to qualification through this top part 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

85 of the flow chart with minimal testing or additional 1

work needed. Next slide.

2 Okay. Looking at A286 bolting material, 3

this is another material we're interested in. A286 is 4

a precipitation-hardened austenitic stainless steel.

5 You'll hear this be called Alloy 660 as well.

6 It has high strength and corrosion 7

resistance and it has similar thermal expansion 8

properties to the 316 series stainless steels. This 9

is an approved Class A bolting material per Section 10 III, Division 5 but only for low temperature service.

11 It's not approved for high temperature service.

12 But it is approved per Section VIII up to 13 538 degrees C for non-nuclear applications. Our 14 anticipated use case for this material we believe is 15 bounded by 550 C for temperatures. And so we've been 16 collaborating with MPR Associates to leverage data 17 from the NIMS database. It's a Japanese material 18 testing database to prepare a code case for A286 19 bolting material up to 100,000 hours0 days <br />0 hours <br />0 weeks <br />0 months <br /> and 550 C.

20 To give you a sense of timeline for this 21 project, we started it three months ago. And we're 22 taking a code case to ASME code next week for comment 23 and review. And so this is an example where we didn't 24 perform any additional testing to get this into code.

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86 We leveraged existing data in available databases to 1

justify the use of the material. Next slide.

2 Okay. And then the last example I want to 3

give here is Alloy 625 and the wrought and welded 4

material application. This is a larger, more involved 5

effort. 625 is a solid-solution strengthened 6

nickel-based superalloy.

7 It has high strength and corrosion 8

resistance. But very importantly, it has low cobalt 9

which helps from an activation perspective. There are 10 material specifications in Section II, the boiler 11 pressure vessel code that covers 625 but it's not 12 permitted currently for Section III, Division 5.

13 But we know there's a lot of interest from 14 reactor developers, not only ourselves in using 625 15 for elevated temperature services applications in the 16 primary systems. So I know Idaho National Lab and 17 Argonne National Lab have been working on a white 18 paper for gap analysis to identify what testing is 19 required across industry to come up with code cases 20 for this material. And our plan is to leverage ASME 21 code committees to organize industry-wide efforts to 22 bring forward 625 code cases into the code.

23 Radiant hosted an informal kick-off 24 meeting recently. It was attended by representatives 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

87 from both national labs, ASME, a number of reactor 1

developers, and one of the metal suppliers, and a 2

nonprofit organization. So there's definitely 3

industry-wide interest.

4 The way we see this going is that reactor 5

developers are the ones primary conducting the 6

testing, determining the qualification envelopes, and 7

driving the technical basis. And everybody has their 8

own flavor of degradation mechanisms that the 9

developers will have to address. But we also welcome 10 support and any additional testing from national labs, 11 suppliers, and industry partners across.

12 So this is a longer and larger scale 13 effort highlighted in the flow chart on the screen 14 where there is a gap to adoption to code and 15 qualification. But we can reduce the testing burden 16 overall by splitting up testing and having ASME and 17 some of these national labs bring together the data 18 from everybody. So I put a few pictures in the bottom 19 of the screen.

20 We have pipe and plate and we plan to weld 21 it. That's actually happening right now. And then 22 we're going to cut up the welds, make weld coupons.

23 I'm not going to go into the test matrix here. But if 24 you want additional information on this, definitely 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

88 meet up with Chris Fanning at ASME code week next week 1

to discuss. Next slide.

2 Okay.

How to accelerate material 3

qualification from our perspective. I screenshotted 4

contents from the ADVANCE

Act, Section 401 5

highlighting a couple bullet points here. I want 6

opportunities to be able to use standard materials, 7

commercially available materials that are approved 8

through other codes for use, even if that means 9

reaching out to other industries.

10 So MMPDS is an example. This contains 11 material allowables for the aerospace industry. And 12 it has oversight from the FAA. There's also 13 international databases that have high quality test 14 data available, European Creep Collaborative 15 Committee.

16 We've mentioned our NIMS database from 17 Japan earlier in this presentation. And then there's 18 a number of national lab technical reports and 19 handbooks. The more the NRC and DOE can provide 20 guidance and pathways to qualify many new materials at 21 once using this existing data, the better.

22 We're putting together a code case for 23 just 286, but using data from NIMS. But there's lots 24 of materials in that database. Are there ways to bulk 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

89 accept properties even if it's not wholesale specific 1

properties from using existing sources?

2 And then how can we reduce testing burden 3

for developers? We've heard other presenters talk 4

about how long it takes to get creep data and so on 5

and so forth. So can we somehow reduce this testing 6

burden by reducing the material qualification testing 7

ahead of building first of a kind units that probably 8

have shorter lifetimes than commercial units do?

9 But these first of a kind units probably 10 also have increased monitoring and surveillance on 11 them as well. And then in general, just encouraging 12 the use to surveillance monitoring of materials 13 through NDE and other methods to reduce overall 14 testing burden for developers, getting into build and 15 testing. Next slide. Our timeline, so we're 16 finalizing design and material selection, now stepping 17 into material qualification testing.

18 We are targeting 2026 for our first fuel 19 demonstration at Idaho National Labs as part of their 20 DOME program. In 2027, we're going to shift into 21 analyzing the data that we're collecting from, 22 material qualification testing, and then documenting 23 that appropriately. And then 2028 is when we're 24 targeting to build our first commercial units.

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90 And obviously, we'll have surveillance and 1

monitoring. That goes hand in hand with that. And 2

with that, I believe the next slide is the -- oh, 3

yeah, finally, per the terms and conditions of NIMS, 4

I have to acknowledge that we use some of their data 5

in support of this work.

6 So we appreciate their high quality test 7

data, and there's a number of other parties that have 8

helped. I mentioned MPR, for example. Next slide.

9 I believe it's just questions. And I think the segue 10 is well into the discussion portion of this meeting.

11 Thank you for your time.

12 MR. IYENGAR: Thank you, Parker. So we do 13 have ample time for technical discussions. I invite 14 the DOE to participate, EPRI and the industry to ask 15 questions.

16 But I want to remind you all again this is 17 a purely technical discussion. NRC staff won't be 18 asking any specific information related to design or 19 schedule of materials or schedule of any licensing 20 actions that you're planning. Further, this is not a 21 licensing meeting. So no discussion on licensing 22 activities.

23 So with that, I would open the floor for 24 questions. Who wants to go first? If there are no 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

91 questions, we can wrap it up.

1 MR. RUDLAND: I have one.

2 MR. IYENGAR: Yeah, go on.

3 MR. RUDLAND: So I'm interested in 4

understanding the need for the use of materials that 5

aren't currently qualified through the code. I know 6

you talked about that a little bit.

7 MR. IYENGAR: Yeah. So just announce your 8

name --

9 MR. RUDLAND: Oh, I'm sorry.

10 MR. IYENGAR: -- and affiliations.

11 MR. RUDLAND: My name is Dave Rudland.

12 I'm from staff. And so I'm looking at -- I'm trying 13 to find -- understand the need for materials that are 14 not currently in the code that want to be used --

15 where the vendors want to use those in their designs 16 prior to codification.

17 MR. ANDREW: I can jump in here. A lot of 18 the materials listed in the code currently are hard to 19 get. Try to go buy 316H.

20 MR. RUDLAND: It's a supply problem?

21 MR. ANDREW: It's a supply problem. 316H, 22 it's very difficult to find. You have to do basically 23 a mill run, and that requires large volume. So a lot 24 of these other materials, I can't speak for everybody 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

92 else.

1 But I'm sure there's an industry for them 2

and that's why they're going after them because 3

they're easier to get. They're used in aerospace.

4 They're used in oil and gas. Other industries, 5

there's already a supply base there for it.

6 MR. RUDLAND: They may be qualified 7

through a different code --

8 MR. ANDREW: Exactly.

9 MR. RUDLAND: -- but not through, like, 10 Section III, Div. 5?

11 MR. ANDREW: Correct, correct.

12 MR. CAIRNS-GALLIMORE: So I have a 13 follow-up question on that. Have you talked to your 14 suppliers on -- including water quality materials? Or 15 are you just buying commercial materials? Because as 16 the AMMT, we've had some interactions with this and 17 there's a massive price difference between the two.

18 MR. ANDREW: There is. And so my 19 experience is with MARVEL and buying materials for 20 MARVEL which is the microreactor projects at the Idaho 21 National Labs. Same problem, they had to get it 22 through a material organization, the ASB supplier 23 essentially of the code materials.

24 And again, it's a huge cost adder.

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93 Probably three times the adder. I never did see the 1

receipts. But I mean, it's a huge cost adder to get 2

it through a material organization.

3 So getting it through a commercial source 4

and then it being allowed through the licensing team 5

here through ADVANCE Act would be super helpful 6

because then we could just say, okay, we do have a 7

CMTR for this material. It's an industry practice 8

that these are sufficient. Let's use this stuff 9

that's already an approved industry practice.

10 MR. RUDLAND: Is it the time dependent 11 properties and the time it takes, is that what's 12 causing the issue with the non-codified materials? Is 13 that what the issue is with getting that stuff done in 14 time to -- or are there other issues?

15 MR. CAIRNS-GALLIMORE: So I'm going to 16 speak from my perspective here. I think there's -- I 17 think time dependent properties are definitely a 18 challenge. You put environmental effects on top of 19 that. We have limited neutrons, and so that's always 20 going to be a challenge.

21 But I think from just getting something 22 into the Division 5, I think there is a necessity to 23 look at the other organizations that are burn natural 24 gas and petrol and aerospace that have developed, like 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

94 Alloy 625 came out of aerospace. There is a ton of 1

data on that, we should be able to look at that 2

statistically and say, this is the base performance on 3

that.

4 And why we're not just taking that and 5

moving it over to the code, it is a very good 6

question. And that's one of the things that our group 7

has been tasked to look at as well.

8 MR. RUDLAND: From my experience, they are 9

trying to use the data from other industries, right, 10 to help in the qualification. So I think they're 11 moving in that direction, just not fast.

12 MR. IYENGAR: I just want to let all of 13 you know if you're interested in asking questions, 14 raise your hand. You can unmute yourself or just let 15 us know by raising a hand and then you can ask your 16 questions orally as well. Are there any questions 17 that anybody has now, before I will go and ask some 18 questions?

19 MR. RUDLAND: I have one more question.

20 MR. IYENGAR: Sure.

21 MR. RUDLAND: So the code process again 22 doesn't do -- doesn't really touch much in terms of 23 environmental qualification, environmental testing.

24 So is it more advantageous for the code to look at 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

95 that? Or is it more advantageous to have guidance on 1

what is needed from a regulatory aspect do you think?

2 Is it better to go through the code process or not?

3 MS. LI: Do you want to answer that 4

question? We talked to some people who are in the 5

technical weeds about this question. The general 6

answer is they don't think the code can take care of 7

that.

8 MR. SHAM: They think it's beyond their 9

charter to do this, yeah.

10 MS. LI: That's right. They don't think 11 that's realistic. And graphite is actually an 12 exception. The reason we were asking is because 13 graphite actually --

14 MR. SHAM: Yeah.

15 MS. LI: Considering the radiation, 16 obviously that's an exception. We shouldn't expect 17 that that will apply to organic material. So we have 18 to think about it.

19 MR. RUDLAND: Okay, great. Thanks.

20 MR. CAIRNS-GALLIMORE: But I would say 21 from the top, I think guidance from NRC on 22 environmental effects would be beneficial for 23 everyone, because it allows us to then decide what 24 testing we actually need to get done. It lowers the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

96 volume of things --

1 MR. RUDLAND: Yeah.

2 MR. CAIRNS-GALLIMORE: -- that need to be 3

accomplished. But the code case, it's a great 4

stepping stone. It's a marker where we can tell 5

progress from, you know, from a qualification 6

standpoint. But, you know, you still need to 7

modernize. I think that's kind of the goal of the 8

AMMT, working with all the organizations as best we 9

can to move forward. Sorry, Raj. Go ahead.

10 MR. IYENGAR: Oh, no. Any questions?

11 Anybody? I'll do some questions. Somebody raised 12 their hand.

13 MS. NEUBAUER: Daniel?

14 MR. SAVARA: I'm going to unmute Daniel.

15 One moment, please. Or allow him. You can click on 16 your microphone button now, Daniel.

17 MR. EISEN: Okay, yeah. Can you hear me?

18 MR. SAVARA: Yes. And if you want camera 19 privilege, just ask. Otherwise, we'll leave it as it 20 is.

21 MR. EISEN: Okay. That's okay. Yes, my 22 name is Daniel Eisen with Westinghouse, the manager of 23 the materials engineering organization in the eVinci 24 program. I had a quick questions for Dr. Li.

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97 I wrote down the acronym. Apologize.

1 Forgot to write down the full definition of it. That 2

MDDC program where you talked about using a digital 3

twin architecture to help predict material 4

performance, is that specific to powder bed fusion or 5

additive technologies? Or is that something that's 6

also being investigated for, let's say, traditional or 7

wrought material manufacturing methods and 8

performance?

9 MS. LI: So we start the MDDC laser powder 10 bed fusion. But now also thinking about in the future 11 expanded to DD. But that's, I think, even traditional 12 manufacturing.

13 Now they start thinking about whether they 14 can add sensors to in situ monitoring data and try to 15 take advantage of the additional technology now 16 actually more common in the additive space. But 17 actually use it also in traditional manufacturing. So 18 we expect this MDDC will not be just specific to one 19 single technology.

20 This is just our starting point to get the 21 process figured out. And then in future, this type of 22 platform can be applied to various manufacturing.

23 This is our goal.

24 MR. IYENGAR: Yeah, it makes sense. Why 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

98 would you not.

1 MS. LI: Right.

2 MR. EISEN: Okay.

3 MR.

IYENGAR:

Did that answer your 4

question?

5 MR. EISEN: Yes, yes, thank you.

6 MR. IYENGAR: I don't see any hands 7

raised. So I have a question for you. I'm not going 8

to ask what acronyms. There are hundreds of acronyms 9

now just on this topic itself, you need to develop a 10 bibliography of all these acronyms. Now I want to ask 11 a question.

12 I know you're using AI/ML for data 13 analytics to support the materials development. But 14 we also now have so much data in many different 15 databases and so much information is written on 16 various materials worldwide. It's impossible for any 17 team to digest all the information.

18 Can you not leverage -- maybe it's 19 something that you can probably fund. Can you not 20 leverage the AI/ML out of applications to consolidate 21 all the data, to summarize them to a form that it's 22 useful for all of us rather than trying to see what 23 real programs, what new testing, what new information 24 I can get?

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99 MR. CAIRNS-GALLIMORE: So I think the 1

answer is yes. The AMMT is not investing in that 2

right now. But the NSUF is starting, looking at it 3

internally, doing that with their own, and whether or 4

not they can expand it potentially in the future.

5 So the answer is yes. But getting the 6

correct data even out of, like, scanned documents is 7

a challenge. So yes, it's going to need development 8

and there are folks working on it.

9 MR. IYENGAR: You see where I'm coming 10 from? It's, like, we have to depend on 15 different 11 experts with 15 different opinions on some things. So 12 I go and ask. One person says this, it doesn't work 13 for this one.

14 So I'm at a loss. So this kind of 15 information would be -- of course it has to be 16 verified and validated with experts who can support 17 it. But it'd be one place to go to. Probably more of 18 an investment.

19 MS. LI: There's also --

20 MR. CAIRNS-GALLIMORE: I'm not sure I can 21 answer that. I think there's other challenges looking 22 at the stuff we do with Bill Corwin and GIF. There's 23 only so much information that they're willing to put 24 in some of these locations.

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100 So gathering it all so you have a cohesive 1

story, I think you can gather a bunch. Whether or not 2

you're going to get the right answer out of that for 3

people to quickly identify the gaps, is another 4

question. Because at some point in time, hopefully, 5

you have the systems in place to identify those gaps.

6 Otherwise, the information -- there's going to be so 7

much information. You're not going to be able to do 8

anything with it. And I want to try to avoid that and 9

build the systems as we go so that we can digest that 10 information appropriately.

11 MR. IYENGAR: Thanks. Matt Hiser?

12 MR. SAVARA: Matt, you should be able to 13 unmute yourself.

14 MR. HISER: Okay. And I'll grace my face 15 on the screen as well. Hi, Matt Hiser. I'm one of 16 the reviewers for materials applications in DANU. I 17 had a couple of questions or thoughts.

18 Maybe I'll start with one that's a little 19 more confined. And maybe I also want to throw out, I 20 don't know, a more far reaching one that I'd be 21 curious, you know, if any or all of the vendors, you 22 know, wanted to comment on. The first I had was about 23 I noticed Westinghouse -- and I know we sort of have 24 comments on a draft reg guide.

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101 So I don't want to encroach anywhere in 1

there. But I did just want to kind of ask a little 2

bit. There was some discussion on one of the slides 3

from Westinghouse about sort of using HBB-Y, the 4

non-mandatory appendix from Division 5 and sort of 5

shed a little more light on how you guys are looking 6

at that.

7 I was just curious kind of what sort of 8

the thought about using sort of materials without 9

needing to add them to code. First, kind of just how 10 that all plays out in your mind. And maybe you guys 11 haven't thought it through all the way, but I was just 12 kind of curious. I'm trying to pull the string on how 13 that sort of aspect of code do you kind of help 14 facilitate the use of new materials.

15 MR. IYENGAR: Dr. Yu, can you unmute 16 yourself? I think, Ashi, you might need to enable 17 him.

18 MR. SAVARA: Yes, I don't think I should 19 need to. But it does look like --

20 MR. YU: Can you hear me?

21 MR. IYENGAR: Yes.

22 MR. YU: Yeah, I'm a material engineer who 23 presented today representing Westinghouse. So our 24 idea is we have to -- we want to find some guidance to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

102 qualify materials that are not permitted in the ASME 1

code. And the mandatory appendix does provide 2

guidance about what your properties that you have to 3

acquire and what is the temperature increment, for 4

example, you have to test.

5 So that give some ideas about how we can 6

design our testing matrix. And in general, we are 7

following that rules to qualify our materials. But 8

there are some deviations from the code.

9 But we have established equivalency and 10 provide explanation in our qualification plans when we 11 submit it to the regulatory bodies. But in general, 12 we hope -- since we are forming that code primarily.

13 So we hope the NRC can reveal and hopefully eventually 14 endorse the code for our qualification process.

15 MR. HISER: And I don't want to go too far 16 than you're comfortable sharing in this forum. But 17 are you envisioning sort of developing a data package 18 and then it sort of going to the code committees? Or 19 are you envisioning a process by which you sort of 20 take that data package, develop, I guess, right, 21 design parameters, allowable stress, and then come 22 correctly to the NRC?

23 We're just trying to understand how 24 vendors are seen in the most efficient way and sort of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

103 code exists. Kind of trying to understand how the 1

practical steps and where NRC's touchpoints are. I'm 2

just trying to understand how it plays out in your 3

mind.

4 MR. YU: I apologize. I'm not sure if I 5

can answer that kind of question. Maybe our licensing 6

lead, Amanda, can help me out.

7 MR. IYENGAR: Yeah, but before Amanda, 8

thank you for attempting this point to Matt's 9

question. But again, I want to remind this is nothing 10 to do with licensing. We don't want specific 11 information on timeline or what you will come to NRC 12 with. So if this is something, general response, 13 please go ahead and provide. Thank you very much.

14 MR. HISER: Right. And I just want to 15 emphasize I think obviously the staff, there's a 16 difference to the staff in some sense. Like, we're 17 sort of performing that code process in terms of 18 reviewing it or if it's gone through the code. And so 19 I think we're just kind of trying to understand.

20 There's been a lot of discussion on HBB-Y, 21 kind of how that plays out and how you guys envision 22 it sort of working through the steps as this sort of 23 now we're going through the -- and I'm not bringing it 24 up in a critical way, just in a seeking to understand 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

104 way of how you guys kind of see it working out.

1 That's all. And now worries if you can't answer on 2

the spot today.

3 MS. SPALDING: Yeah, this is Amanda 4

Spalding, the licensing technical lead for the eVinci 5

program. So maybe I can just kind of provide a little 6

bit more insight and anything more than that may be 7

getting too far in the weeds for this meeting. But I 8

think our general thought process -- and this is 9

aligned with the conversations we had in the public 10 meetings focused on the draft reg guide and the 11 revised comment letter that -- or the additional 12 comment letter that NEI submitted after that meeting.

13 I don't think our intent is that NRC 14 endorsement of HBB-Y would replace the need to add 15 materials to the code. It's that as we've kind of 16 indicated in this meeting, it is very time intensive 17 to get materials in the code. So if we are working on 18 that in parallel with our licensing activities but we 19 don't have a sense that our approach is acceptable to 20 NRC until the materials been added to the code, that 21 carries a lot of risk.

22 So getting some insights that NRC has 23 endorsed the process and we are following the process.

24 That derisks the expensive testing, the timely 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

105 testing, all of that work that gives some derisking to 1

moving forward with all of that. So I think that's 2

kind of where the intent comes from.

3 MR. HISER: No, and I think to me that was 4

very helpful. I think you shed -- at least for my 5

mind and we were in prior public meeting a couple 6

months ago. And I think --

7 MS. SPALDING: Yeah.

8 MR. HISER: -- I read the comments. I 9

think that shed more light, for me at least, on it.

10 So I think that was helpful. I'd encourage if anybody 11 else on the staff side had just a question to follow 12 up. But I think that makes sense. The second point 13 14 (Simultaneous speaking.)

15 MR. HISER: Go ahead.

16 MR. RUDLAND: This is Dave Rudland. I 17 just wanted to ask Amanda a question just based on 18 what she said. So would guidance from the NRC on 19 materials that had not yet been codified that you want 20 to use within ASME code or similar codes be useful?

21 MS. SPALDING: I think we probably want to 22 have those discussions -- I don't know that we are 23 ready to have that specific discussion because it may 24 depend on what material and where it's being used. I 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

106 don't know that I could generally say across the board 1

for Westinghouse that guidance would be -- from NRC 2

would be useful there.

3 MR. RUDLAND: Because the guidance or 4

whether it turns out to be general guidance or 5

endorsement of HBB-Y or whatever, right? I mean, I 6

think that kind of stuff, from what you said, sounds 7

like it would be somewhat useful.

8 MS. SPALDING: Yeah, I think what I would 9

say is the endorsement or guidance on the process to 10 qualify materials is helpful. That's probably as much 11 as I can commit to in this meeting. But we would 12 definitely be welcome to have additional discussions 13 on our detailed plans with the staff.

14 MR. IYENGAR: Okay. Thank you very much.

15 Again, this is not a meeting where we discuss the 16 draft guide 1436, the reg guide 1.87 revision. It was 17 a general question that Matt asked. Matt, you had a 18 follow-on question. As long as it's within the 19 guidelines we have, you're fine. But I think we 20 should be very careful not to tread --

21 MR. HISER: I won't call any vendor out by 22 name. This will be a much more generic, cross cutting 23 point of discussion that hopefully is helpful. So one 24 of the things -- the elephant in the room in my mind, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

107 right, and it came up in almost every presentation 1

timeline. And it takes time to generate data, whether 2

it's for code purposes or for environmental effects or 3

otherwise.

4 And I guess the thing that I'm a big 5

advocate for and I see as part of the solution here, 6

and I think -- well, maybe I will use on name.

7 Radiant and I think one of their -- in their last 8

presentation emphasized it a bit that you sort of have 9

-- our methods sort of in the performance monitoring 10

realm, whether it's in service inspection, 11 surveillance coupons, or other types of sort of online 12 monitoring that can sort of allow you, right, to 13 demonstrate assurance without maybe having the full 14 data set you'd ideally like to have which I think is 15 probably every vendor's challenge. Nobody has the 16 ideal amount of data they'd like to have today to go 17 license their design.

18 I'd just be curious. In my mind, that 19 element of reducing uncertainty not only reduces 20 enterprise or commercial risk but also sort of can 21 reduce nuclear safety risk or increase confidence or 22 provide more assurance, right? We do it in operating 23 plants with surveillance specimens for the radiation 24 embrittlement of low alloy steel.

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108 We obviously do all kinds of in service 1

inspection. We monitor for leakage. There's, I 2

think, good experience with all these types of things.

3 I'm just curious how are vendors thinking about and/or 4

would more guidance be helpful from the staff on how 5

performance monitoring approaches can sort of be 6

credited or help build a

case for sort of 7

demonstrating material performance if you will. And 8

just to me, that's a generic topic that probably -- if 9

no one has any thoughts, that's cool. But I think any 10 of the vendors would be interested to hear or DOE or 11 others, kind of how that resonates or how that piece 12 fits into the picture.

13 MR. IYENGAR: Yeah, so again, we're not 14 specifically asking whether the guidance is needed or 15 not at this meeting. But your thoughts -- general 16 thoughts of where opportunities may exist for folks to 17 adopt newer materials faster, I think is a general 18 type of question that Matt was posing. And we have a 19 lot of knowledge base accrued with respect to light 20 water reactors in terms of performance of SSCs. So how 21 can we leverage on that is what he's asking. So I see 22 a couple of hands. Who wants to go first?

23 MR. SAVARA: So Chanson, you can unmute.

24 You're able to do so.

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109 MR. IYENGAR: Yes, I'm hoping this 1

responds to what Matt was saying, is that right?

2 MR. SAVARA: And Bridge may also unmute, 3

both Chanson and Bridget should be able to.

4 MS. HANNIFIN: Okay, I wanted to give 5

Chanson the first shot since the name was up first.

6 But yeah, that's something we highlighted in our 7

presentation, and just looking at decreasing that 8

uncertainty is helpful. And as we're looking at pilot 9

type things versus more formal guidance, I think as 10 folks are laying out what their plans are, laying out 11 what their risks are, and valuing those risks.

12 Using examples really helps people 13 understand what that risk is versus maybe discussion 14 of trying to draw broader analogies from things that 15 are less similar. So, I think when we're looking at 16 evaluating, monitoring, I think that's part of what 17 we're thinking of, is this similar, can we chart what 18 the next steps are? Or do we feel like we're taking 19 a bigger risk, more uncertainty with the direction 20 that we're going.

21 So, I think that would be helpful, 22 especially around monitoring in service type reaction, 23 and I think that's where we feel there's a lot of 24 uncertainty within this industry, and the different 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

110 reactor decisions kind of drive some of the decisions 1

to rely on those technologies that are used elsewhere 2

in pressurized systems.

3 MR. HISER: Thanks for that. It looks 4

like Chanson has rejoined.

5 MR. IYENGAR: Chanson, if you're unable to 6

unmute yourself, perhaps you can try, or? Yeah, now 7

you can, yes, go ahead, Chanson.

8 MR. YANG: Can you guys hear me?

9 MR. IYENGAR: Yes.

10 MR. YANG: Okay, sorry about that. Yeah, 11 the response on how online performance --

12 MR. IYENGAR: Can you tell us your name 13 and your affiliation?

14 MR. YANG: Sorry about that. Yeah, 15 Chanson Yang here with Parker on the Radiant team, and 16 you guys asked a

question about performance 17 monitoring, so I just want to jump in a little bit 18 there. Parker, feel free to add anything that you 19 think I miss, but I'm going to answer it a bit broadly 20 in the sense of we're demonstrating, as some of the 21 other developers are at a DOE lab, and we're planning 22 on gathering valuable data from that test.

23 The time lines for the amount of hours 24 needed to actually characterize some of this data is 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

111 clearly in excess of what we are going to operate at.

1 But we would like further collaboration on how we can 2

actually credit this data. So, it's been a little bit 3

tough to try to get a direct answer on the tests that 4

we're going to perform, how we're going to monitor it, 5

what we're going to be monitoring, and how we can use 6

that directly to inform our application.

7 So, yeah, I don't know if I'd necessarily 8

say just guidance, but at least direct conversation on 9

engagement on what that test is and what it looks 10 like, and feedback on how we could structure it, or 11 additional parameters that maybe we're not 12 considering. All of that would be useful and helpful.

13 MR. IYENGAR: Thank you, Chanson. Parker, 14 did you have anything to add? I think you raised your 15 hand as well.

16 MR. BUNTIN: Yeah, I raised my hand 17 because Chanson was having microphone difficulties.

18 No, nothing too much to add, I'll just echo what 19 Chanson said. We see gathering data and kind of 20 monitoring and surveillance as a huge way to de-risk 21 just the testing burden required up front getting into 22 builds. I mentioned we're going to pull our reactor 23 back to refuel at a fueling facility, right?

24 We're doing that every five years, so it's 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

112 an opportunity to check those reactors even when 1

they're in a fleet periodically, and we can do so more 2

frequently with initial reactors. So, it's an 3

inherent part of our strategy, we're still fleshing 4

out the details of it, but I think it's a way to 5

accelerate getting into initial hardware builds, and 6

testing in a safe way.

7 MR. IYENGAR: Okay, thank you.

8 MR. HISER: And I would just add from the 9

staff perspective, I think it's an important building 10 block to help sort of bridge the gap if you will, of 11 not having enough up front data. So, I'd encourage 12 all the vendors to be thinking about how they can use 13 that to help build the case to demonstrate sort of 14 their components will perform the way they anticipate.

15 MR. IYENGAR: Thank you, Matt. Mike, you 16 had your hand up.

17 MR. MCMURTREY: Yeah, can you hear me 18 okay?

19 MR. IYENGAR: Yes.

20 MR. MCMURTREY: Mike McMurtrey, Idaho 21 National Lab. I work as a technical area lead in 22 Meimei Li's program looking at a number of different 23 things. But one of the things we do have within my 24 area is a program to develop surveillance test 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

113 articles for advanced reactors. I know there is a 1

recent ASTM

standard, but we're looking to 2

specifically try to develop a passively loaded test 3

article.

4 So that the material you're trying to 5

surveil will go through the same loading patterns as 6

the component, as a way then to kind of answer some of 7

these concerns. Because we do a lot of mechanical 8

testing, obviously the ASME code has a lot of 9

mechanical information like we've said, without the 10 environments, without the irradiation.

11 We do some testing in environments, but 12 every vendor has different coolants, different 13 chemistries, and different flux. I mean, very 14 challenging to get the combined effects information 15 you need to be really be confident in the material's 16 behavior, and how that's going to change when you have 17 everything together.

18 So, that's been the goal of this program, 19 is to develop what the test article should look like, 20 how you design that test article so that it matches 21 your component, and then as you pull it out, what kind 22 of analysis you should do to ensure you're getting the 23 right information, getting the right answers from 24 that, that analysis of the test article to understand 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

114 what kind of remaining life you have in your 1

components with all these combined effects.

2 As compared to just based on the 3

mechanical test data that might be in the code. So, 4

we had this idea, we see this surveillance test 5

program being very important for using these 6

materials, even if they are already in the code, just 7

because these environments in the advanced reactors is 8

so much more new to us.

9 We have so much less experience, and it is 10 going to be very significant how these different 11 things all work together. Whether that's helium 12 generation on your creep data due to the radiation, or 13 anything else with the environments. There's a lot of 14 challenges there, and we're just never going to have 15 as much information as we want.

16 And so, the surveillance test programs I 17 think are going to be very important for this, which 18 is why we're investing on them in the DOE program.

19 MR. IYENGAR: Thank you. Any other 20 questions, Matt, you're on, did you have a follow on 21 question, or?

22 MR. HISER: I've sufficiently disrupted 23 things, thanks.

24 MR. IYENGAR: Thank you. Thanks, Mike.

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115 I wanted to ask DOE and EPRI, I think unfortunately 1

Mark Albert and Chris Wax had to leave for another 2

important meeting, but I'll ask Bruce to add some --

3 I'm going to make his life very difficult now. So, 4

you have all these programs where you have the 5

accelerated ion testing, neutron testing, and there's 6

no one -- either it's difficult to do the neutron 7

testing for whatever time you want, while ion beam is 8

easier to do, it may not get to where you need to be 9

in terms of what the actual degradation would be in a 10 nuclear environment.

11 And you mentioned that you're trying to 12 bridge that gap through some modeling and simulation, 13 can you tell me a little bit more about that? And is 14 it materials agnostic, or is it focused on specific 15 either nickel based super alloys, or stainless steels?

16 MS. LI: So, again we started with power 17 bed fusion 316H because this is all part of our rapid 18 qualification effort, but interpreting our radiation 19 data correctly, that's very important. And in order 20 to do that we really need to understand the difference 21 between neutron radiation and ion radiation. For 22 example, the primary knock on the energy spectrum is 23 different -- actually this is not really just the 24 difference between neutron radiation and ion 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

116 radiation.

1 If we think about it, doing neutron 2

radiation in fast reactors, and doing neutron 3

radiation in similar reactors, we're running into 4

similar issues, right? So, we need to understand the 5

difference between different radiation experiments.

6 Actually recently there was a lot of discussion, we 7

are going to do neutron radiation of 709, that is 8

primarily, at least initially to support sodium cooled 9

fast reactors.

10 That is the fast spectrum, but then we 11 only have ATR and hyper to do neutron radiation. And 12 then at least one aspect, the helium production rate, 13 is going to be hugely different. So, how can we 14 correctly interpret the data we get from the ATR, and 15 then translate that knowledge to a fast reactor? So, 16 it's similar to the difference between neutron 17 radiation and ion radiation, right?

18 In terms of the energy spectrum, in terms 19 of the dose rate will reach several order of 20 magnitudes, in terms of the geometry of your sample, 21 your surface impact effect, and whether it's uniform 22 damage or it's a grating damage. But only if we can 23 understand this difference through the modern 24 simulation we can correctly interpret the data from 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

117 different radiation experiments, and then can bring 1

all those data together so we can take advantage of 2

the data that comes from different radiation 3

experiments, that's --

4 MR. CAIRNS-GALLIMORE: It sounds like 5

certainly it's going to be high.

6 MS. LI: Yeah, that is why --

7 MR. RUDLAND: I think initially yes, but 8

at some point in time you're going to get --

9 MS. LI: Right, that's why understanding 10 is very important, rather than just generating data.

11 MR. IYENGAR: Yeah, so you can go from 12 past principles, and start doing that, and properly --

13 ideally you should know -- if I know the past 14 principles I should be able to get the end result 15 whenever it happens. I know I'm pretty old, so many 16 decades ago there was a huge program that the federal 17 agencies funded, NNSA, everybody funded on trying to 18 bridge the gap.

19 Bridging the gap from atomistic, nano, 20 micro, to macro level. A huge amount of dollars was 21 spent on that. I don't know whether it got us where 22 we wanted to be --

23 MR. RUDLAND: I think we'd know if it did.

24 I think that's like the --

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118 MR. IYENGAR: Well, we have somebody who 1

worked on something like that, Chris Ulmer, but so the 2

lesson for me is it was a fantastic thing, very ideal.

3 If I can do that, if I can achieve that going from an 4

atomistic to an engineering level, I think I'd call it 5

victory. Now, we know that's had some problems. On 6

the flip side, you have a brute force approach, I get 7

all this data, and I just punch it in, I fit the data, 8

do a particular approach, get some fit, and see how 9

that will predict the behavior of particular material 10 system, or component.

11 And on top of it now I have some 12 intelligent tools called AI and machine learning, 13 which can probably help me make it a little bit more 14 intelligent than the dumb curving approach. If you 15 combine these two, would you be able to solve the 16 problem?

17 MS. LI: Well, obviously that's what we're 18 trying. So, first of all when you talk about 19 radiation damage, it's a multi-scale problem, right?

20 You have to start from atomic scale and picosecond 21 damage all the way up to the meter scale, the year, 22 this is a huge challenge. But we start this back to 23 1950, over the years a lot --

24 MR. IYENGAR: I wasn't born then.

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119 MS. LI: So, there's a lot of knowledge 1

accumulated. Obviously it hasn't reached the level we 2

all are happy with, so this will be the continual 3

effort. And then in the meantime you talk about now 4

there's also AI machine learning tools, whether you 5

can completely just rely on physics based modeling, 6

which we all love to do.

7 But sometimes even creating the different 8

scale, it's not necessarily so straight forward, just 9

purely based on physics based modeling, but that's 10 actually where AI and machine learning can come in.

11 So, combining these two whenever you can have a 12 physics based modeling, have some knowledge, and then 13 take advantage of that when you run into the problem, 14 and look at whether machine learning can help you to 15 really map -- to connect the dots basically.

16 So, I think that's why we're thinking we 17 have to use whatever data we can generate, and 18 whatever tool we can have. So, it may not be 100 19 percent to answer your question, but at least there is 20 improvement, right? So, I think that's what we should 21 aim for. We're talking about uncertainty, if it's 22 reduced some level of uncertainty, it's an 23 improvement.

24 MR. IYENGAR: Bruce from EPRI, Bruce, did 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

120 you want to add anything to the discussion? I'm 1

putting you on the spot.

2 MR. GREER: I'm pretty new to the program 3

with Marc and Chris, so I think it's best if I just 4

pull that question in and get their input on it, but 5

I appreciate the question.

6 MR. IYENGAR: You're not -- I mean, you 7

know pretty much, you worked on digital twins and used 8

these advanced technology, so I think you probably 9

know. I do understand that you don't want to commit 10 to the answer right now, which is fine. What I wanted 11 to ask was this is not going to solve this question 12 today or tomorrow.

13 I am asking Dirk and probably EPRI, are we 14 at a point where we have all of these advances made in 15 these kinds of technology, are we at a point that we 16 are not thinking smart enough to leverage all of that, 17 to even deeply as engineering judgment?

18 MR. RUDLAND: It's deeply philosophical.

19 MR. IYENGAR: You have to have a deep 20 funding with DOE.

21 MR. CAIRNS-GALLIMORE: Im going to 22 generally describe a project I was on. Well, it was 23 one of the NASA missions, it was the first large Mars 24 rovers, because DOE provides the power systems for 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

121 that. It passed all the tests incredibly well, went 1

on the mission, it was great. In the ten years we 2

were collecting the same information on this unit.

3 But the difference is the rate at which we are 4

collecting that information said there was a problem.

5 So, you had so much more fidelity on the 6

information you had available, and then we said look, 7

this is a huge problem. It wasn't for the one before 8

that, turns out it wasn't a problem on this mission.

9 So, I think when you start looking at engineering 10 judgment, I think we have to be careful that we're 11 asking the right questions.

12 And I think that's when we have a huge 13 amount of data, I think that's where the guidance of 14 the NRC is, that's where all the expertise that we've 15 gained over the years becomes

really, really 16 important. Because the first time these models run, 17 there is going to be someone looking after them to see 18 if it was right, and they're going to comb through all 19 the data.

20 And so, I think you're always going to 21 have this engineering judgment. You're always going 22 to have the people that have been doing this for a 23 long time that say yes or no.

24 MR. IYENGAR: Yeah. Well, I want to tell 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

122 you something, we had the same questions when I 1

started graduate school when we did modeling, and a 2

number of experienced people said the same thing.

3 You're not going to be able to replace some judgment 4

we make on whether the structure can withstand this 5

much time.

6 But we have really gone way ahead in terms 7

of modeling, getting that -- I'll give you another 8

example. The same question was asked when PRA 9

developed. A lot of engineering judgment, I know some 10 people don't like PRA, but a lot of engineering 11 judgment has been replaced by PRA. Now, I'm asking 12 you why is it not possible for a number of the things 13 that we're talking to?

14 MR. CAIRNS-GALLIMORE: So, I want to add 15 on a little bit. I think if you're going to have 16 engineering judgment, where that engineering judgment 17 is, it's going to evolve. Where it's going to get 18 transferred from some of the engineers in safety, it's 19 going to get transferred over to code, so you're going 20 to see an evolution of that.

21 To get to Raj, I think the challenge we 22 have being in the space program on that side, but the 23 PRA is you can always dig deeper. You can always dig 24 deeper, and at some point in time someone has to say 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

123 okay, you're going down a hole that that risk is so 1

minuscule that if it happens, the numbers are so 2

astronomical that people just don't understand 3

anymore.

4 And so, at some point you have to tell the 5

people to stop looking. And so, then you get the 6

tiered launch approval process that exists now, where 7

there are standards that says if it's this they get to 8

approve it, if it's that, someone else gets to approve 9

it. So, at some point -- and again, that's just a 10 risk number, and someone has to say it's acceptable.

11 MR. RUDLAND: I don't want to lose our 12 engineering judgment ability by trusting a lot of 13 these types of models, right? That's the thing.

14 MR. CAIRNS-GALLIMORE: I think someone 15 always has to ask the questions.

16 MR. RUDLAND: Yeah.

17 MR. IYENGAR: Well, think about space 18 reactors, think about things in space, a lot of the 19 engineering judgment is replaced by information data 20 analysis. So, I think it is a point, at some point we 21 need to probably think a little bit of advancing the 22 state of knowledge, and giving up something is 23 actually gaining a lot more.

24 MR. RUDLAND: Yeah, and finite element 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

124 analysis is so easy now just about anybody can 1

replicate it, right? I mean, you can teach anybody to 2

make a mesh, and put some loads on it, and look at the 3

pretty colors that it creates. But it takes something 4

to be able to interpret what that means, right? And 5

that's what we need.

6 MR. CAIRNS-GALLIMORE: And you have all of 7

the arguments of whether the mesh is appropriate, 8

which is the right scale, the right geometry.

9 MR. RUDLAND: Right, that's all that 10 judgment.

11 MR. IYENGAR: Can a machine not do that in 12 the future? I think that day is coming, maybe decades 13 from now, but it's coming. So, anyway, I'm sorry, 14 digressing filling this slot. Any questions that 15 people have, please feel free to ask. Yes, Ashi, you 16 have your hand up? You can unmute yourself.

17 MR. SAVARA: Yes, there was a question 18 that was partially answered by the presentations, but 19 I think it's a question for all of the speakers, that 20 there are many cases where the technical data can take 21 a long time to collect, and so in those cases what are 22 the alternatives to doing that? And to get the data 23 that's needed. And again, it's been partially 24 answered by various presentations.

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125 MR. IYENGAR: Does anybody want --

1 MR. SAVARA: I thought there would be more 2

that wasn't mentioned, so that's my question.

3 MR. IYENGAR: Amanda?

4 MS. SPALDING: Sure, this is Amanda 5

Spalding from Westinghouse again. I will say that 6

Zefeng had to drop, and I will probably have to drop 7

after answering this, so just wanted to let you guys 8

know that I think Westinghouse will be off the 9

meeting. But I think that probably the answer to that 10 question is very -- it will generally be specific 11 based on the applicants.

12 We have ourselves, and Radiant mentioned 13 the testing, test reactors going on at INL, I think 14 will be using some of that for getting data, and 15 everyone kind of has their own strategies and plans.

16 So, I don't know that there is a generic publicly 17 available answer we could provide. But those are the 18 types of things we have discussed in pre-application 19 in the white papers that Zefeng highlighted, and will 20 continue to discuss with the staff through topical 21 reports for our qualification methodologies.

22 So, just wanted to answer the question, 23 although I can't really give much detail. Thank you.

24 MR. IYENGAR: Thank you. So, Chris, you 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

126 had your hand up, did you want to add something? No?

1 Okay.

2 MS. LI: Sorry, I just wanted to add.

3 MR. IYENGAR: Yes.

4 MS. LI: This is actually mentioned in the 5

last presentation about Alloy 625, there is lots of 6

interest to include this material into Section 3 of 7

Division 5. And in the last presentation it was 8

mentioned that Idaho and Argonne actually, that's the 9

work supported by AMMT. We're talking about what we 10 call community cold case, because there are actually 11 lots of data already generated by various industry 12 partners.

13 We're trying to gauge how many data 14 available, and what can be shared, and put all this 15 together, and then identify the additional data that 16 needs to be generated. So, hopefully this can help 17 shorten the time to establish a new cold case for this 18 alloy.

19 MR. IYENGAR: Yeah, thank you. Chris from 20 Radiant?

21 MR. SAVARA: Let me try this, I did try it 22 earlier, Chris, are you able to unmute now? You can 23 try again. It seems like I'm not able to.

24 MR. IYENGAR: You are not able to unmute?

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127 MR. SAVARA: Yeah, you should see the mic 1

icon in the top right. If you're not able to, you can 2

try to call into the meeting with the information 3

that's being posted. Sorry, we've tried twice with 4

Chris now, I apologize I'm not able to do more.

5 4:02:18 (Unintelligible.)

6 MR. IYENGAR: Sorry about the issue.

7 MR. SAVARA: Yeah, please call in, Chris, 8

if you're able to, since we'll be able to try that way 9

as well.

10 MR. IYENGAR: Okay, how are we doing on 11 time?

12 MS. NEUBAUER: It is 4:02.

13 MR. IYENGAR: 4:02, so are there any more 14 questions? If not, I would pose a very general 15 question to all of you. We talked about qualifying 16 materials through code process, and it seems like 17 there was some sentiment that it's probably a delayed, 18 extensive, long process. We also talked about other 19 types of testing, and processes, and licensing for 20 accelerated qualification that Dr. Li mentioned.

21 Which could be considered alternative to 22 the code process. Now, I want to tell you the 23 question is very relevant because five years ago we 24 had a session in our standards forum, which we hold 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

128 every year annually. Christian Araguas, who is my 1

boss, is the NRC standards executive, when we posed 2

this question in a panel for the first time, I think 3

I recall, on accelerated qualification, I think we had 4

some folks from DOE and Oak Ridge, some of you may 5

remember Burt Trelany, and Mark Medler and other 6

people who were involved.

7 Since then I think there has been a lot of 8

activity that NRC staff has been undertaking to 9

address this issue. And I want to ask you, even if 10 you go the alternative approach, you're still going to 11 have to spend time. So, what is causing the delay, 12 what -- is this code process inherently a delayed 13 process? Anybody? Savara is not going to answer the 14 question because we had told them not to answer 15 questions from -- I'm just kidding.

16 Yeah, go ahead. So, you have two 17 different codes, I'm hearing sentiments on either 18 side.

19 MS. LI: Somebody was trying to answer.

20 MR. BUNTIN: I'll take a stab at this.

21 MR. IYENGAR: Yeah.

22 MR. BUNTIN: It's really two fold. There 23 is the time it takes to actually physically collect 24 the data, especially for creep, creep fatigue, and 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

129 these are very long tests. Even with the kind of 1

extrapolation allowed, sometimes you need a minimum of 2

20000 hours, right? That's years of testing.

3 So, there's the actual time it takes to 4

collect the data, and then there is the time it takes 5

to actually get that data incorporated into the code.

6 So, you have to prepare a data package, you have to 7

socialize it at different ASME code committees, 8

collect comments, work it through that process, which 9

can take some time as well. So, I would say it's two 10 fold, collecting the data, and then actually getting 11 it incorporated.

12 MR. IYENGAR: Yeah, but a non-code process 13 will also take time to get all the data, and 14 especially to decide what materials to add to ensure 15 that they are operating within the envelope of the 16 stress window we have some --

17 MS. LI: So, AMMT, what we're thinking is 18 while we are working with ASME to have the cold case 19 proved, which takes time, and we can in the meantime 20 establish so called design guidelines, or a handbook 21 type of thing. We can already start to proof the data 22 package and the design manual into the -- including of 23 course radiation, which is not in the code.

24 So, at least that proprietary industries, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

130 something for them to use, and even if it's not a 1

class eight component, for example you don't really 2

need to wait for the code case, but that information 3

available for them, and then they can start to 4

incorporate the material into their design. But in the 5

meantime while we continue to add more data, more 6

knowledge, and continue to improve, I think it's 7

important.

8 Because industry also needs to become more 9

familiar with whatever is new material or emerging 10 techniques, so that gives them this additional one 11 other alternative, a path we're thinking about. And 12 to address the testing need, yeah, the evidence 13 testing itself is very time consuming. That's why if 14 we can use our understanding of modeling, simulation 15 to condense larger extrapolation factor is acceptable, 16 right?

17 Currently, commonly it's 3 to 5, I think 18 now they are already talking about 10 or 20, that's 19 pretty significant. If we're thinking about how to 20 accelerate our code case, 20, that means we only need 21 5000 hours0.0579 days <br />1.389 hours <br />0.00827 weeks <br />0.0019 months <br /> of data. But that's also really dependent 22 on the material. If you're just talking about 316H, 23 but apply different manufacturing techniques using 24 equivalent base, it's probably roughly speaking --

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131 it's more acceptable compared with you have a brand 1

new material.

2 But this is something in a

large 3

extrapolation factor that is definitely a pathway for 4

acceleration.

5 MR.

CAIRNS-GALLIMORE:

And there's 6

perceived risk. Almost every one of these vendors, 7

there is an approved material, it's the least risk to 8

them. So, their perception of whether or not they can 9

go outside that material base, it's not happening 10 because it's too big of a risk for them. So, you have 11 to have a process that hopefully you can get these 12 materials into a usable space in a valuable amount of 13 time so that your industry partners can innovate, and 14 expand, and compete with the rest of everyone else.

15 And at the end what you want is a system 16 that your material and your component does exactly 17 what it's supposed to do for its life with minimal --

18 within the acceptable amount of risk. So, all these 19 qualification processes are all about minimizing risk, 20 so how we deal -- move forward on that is going to be 21 fascinating.

22 MR. IYENGAR: So, I will tell you, yes, 23 you do all this stuff, and then generally we need to 24 get ourselves in a position, a point where there is no 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

132 supply for the material, so then I start looking for 1

alternatives, and come back, and then --

2 MR. CAIRNS-GALLIMORE: Well, its really 3

really expensive.

4 MR. IYENGAR: Yeah. So, the same thing 5

happened with graphite, that's -- one of the 6

presentations pointed it out --

7 MR. CAIRNS-GALLIMORE: I think that's a 8

different thing, I think that's also a different 9

conversation as well, because that's -- we have NQA-1, 10 our aerospace standards equivalent is ISO9001 Plus so 11 if there is equivalence on that level as well, you 12 then open up your supply chain.

13 But that's a different question than we're 14 having a qualification, that's another questions.

15 MR. IYENGAR: Yeah. One of the 16 presentations I've read about, was it from Radiant?

17 It mentioned about qualification of a bunch of 18 materials together, was it batch qualification? Can 19 you expound on that, was it partly imagined, or it was 20 somebody else? Go ahead, Parker.

21 MR. BUNTIN: Yeah, that was me. That 22 point was focused on using existing data that was 23 collected with oversight from other regulatory bodies, 24 or has an equivalent quality program that would give 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

133 us confidence to be able to use in a nuclear 1

application to bulk accept certain properties of those 2

materials. So, it doesn't have to be hey, you can just 3

use this for your application without any additional 4

testing.

5 It's like hey, in the aerospace industry, 6

or the oil and gas industry, there has been a ton of 7

data on yield strength for this particular metal, or 8

this list of metals, and it's all published very 9

officially, good documentation in this report, or this 10 database. So, if you can look at those and bulk 11 accept based on the quality and the source of that 12 data, and what reviews were already performed on it, 13 that would accelerate us quite a bit.

14 That doesn't mean there's not additional 15 testing to be performed, but that does mean that 16 industry wide the amount of testing that needs to be 17 done goes down for every single developer, that was 18 the point.

19 MR. IYENGAR: Thank you. Anybody else 20 want to comment on that?

21 MR. CAIRNS-GALLIMORE: No, I agree with 22 Parker.

23 MR. IYENGAR: Okay. I have one more 24 question, unless anybody -- I don't see any questions.

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134 This is for Westinghouse, I'm curious to -- I know 1

this was not a focus of this meeting, but you did 2

mention about the graphite grades, the tool that we 3

had developed for graphite assessment, what was your 4

-- can you not use a tool to add different grades in 5

there?

6 It's a publicly available tool that we 7

have developed here, was that you, or who talked about 8

it?

9 MR. SAVARA: We think the Westinghouse 10 representatives may not be here anymore.

11 MR. IYENGAR: They're not here, okay, 12 sounds good. So, that's all I have. Anybody else 13 have any questions, any comments that you want to 14 make, DOE, EPRI, industry representatives? No?

15 MR. ANDREW: I just want to thank 16 everybody, this is Luke from Aalo, just wanted to 17 thank you for setting this meeting up and listening to 18 our pains, and hopefully finding solutions to these 19 pains.

20 MR. IYENGAR: You're welcome, we will find 21 solutions to your pain. Anyway, so thank so much. If 22 there are no other questions, I better turn it over to 23 Meredith for public Q&A.

24 MS. NEUBAUER: I don't really have much to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

135 close out this meeting. Just thank you for everyone 1

for taking the time supporting this discussion, and 2

just as a reminder, I think maybe the fourth reminder, 3

but that's okay, no regulatory decisions were made or 4

are being made at this meeting. If you would like to 5

have your attendance reflected, please send an email 6

to A-D-I-T-Y-A dot S-A-V-A-R-A at NRC.gov.

7 And feedback on the format of this meeting 8

can be provided at feedback.nrc.gov. Thank you, and 9

the meeting is adjourned.

10 MR. IYENGAR: Sorry, I thought --

11 MS. NEUBAUER: Or not.

12 MR. IYENGAR: I thought that Greg Oberson 13 from NRR was also going to provide some kind of 14 closing remarks. But before that, are there any other 15 questions from the public? We want to give this 16 opportunity to have any additional questions. Okay, 17 hearing none, I'll turn it over to Greg to wrap up the 18 meeting.

19 MR. OBERSON: Yeah, so I guess it's sort 20 of anticlimactic. Yeah, so my name is Greg Oberson, 21 I'm a branch chief in Office of Nuclear Reactor 22 Regulation Division of Advanced Reactor and non-Power 23 Production Utilization Facilities, so we work really 24 closely with our counterparts in the Office of Nuclear 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

136 Regulatory Research, and within other areas of the 1

Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.

2 Again, I just want to extend my thanks to 3

those folks who took time to be part of the meeting 4

today. I think compliance with the ADVANCE Act, and 5

actually our mission state would obligate us to be 6

open minded in our thinking about what's needed to 7

assure ourselves safety. It's in our interest, and in 8

line with national policy to enable the deployment of 9

nuclear facilities, and to do that fast, but to do 10 that safe, underline the word safe.

11 And I think this conversation is helping 12 us get in that direction, we're really interested in 13 having an open dialogue with stakeholders of all 14 stripes about what that looks like, and what the role 15 NRC can play within our purview, in line with our 16 mission, and our responsibilities. So, again, 17 grateful for your really thoughtful approaches to 18 what's a difficult topic.

19 And we're going to be looking forward to 20 further engagement with you on this moving forward.

21 So, I guess with that I'll formally adjourn the 22 meeting.

23 MS. NEUBAUER: You can close it out now.

24 MR.

OBERSON:

Yeah, the meeting is 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com

137 adjourned, thanks.

1 MR. IYENGAR: Thank you all.

2 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 3

off the record at 4:16 p.m.)

4 5

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