SNU–KAIST Center for Advanced Nuclear Fuel Innovation (CANUFI) | Industry–Academia–Research Institute Exchange Workshop

KAIST, Daejeon · July 22–23, 2026

 

Over two days, young researchers from the Nuclear Fuel Materials & Safety Lab at Seoul National University (Prof. Youho Lee) and the Nuclear Fuel Materials Lab at KAIST (Prof. Ho Jin Ryu) presented ten talks on the current state of advanced nuclear fuel research in Korea. Dr. Jaejoon Kim (KAERI) joined as an invited speaker on TRISO fuel qualification.

 

Themes that ran through the program:

 

▪️ Accident-tolerant fuel — degradation mechanisms in Cr-coated Zr cladding, and what the resulting safety limits actually imply for licensing

▪️ TRISO — qualification pathways and in-house performance code development (TRIPLE)

▪️ Computational methods — ML interatomic potentials coupled to FRAPCON, and LLM-assisted technology gap analysis for TRU fuel in SMRs

▪️ Materials characterization — EBSD studies of hydride reorientation, ion irradiation damage in Gd2O3, and hydration resistance of doped gadolinia absorbers

 

A recurring theme in the discussion: the gap between mechanism-level understanding and the safety criteria regulators can actually use. Closing it is where much of the interesting work now sits.

 

Grateful to all participants for a substantive and open exchange.