Precision instrumentation for nuclear’s toughest challenges.
ORNL’s Nuclear and Extreme Environments Measurements group develops and tests durable instrumentation that ensure accurate, actionable insights.
Nuclear systems operate under some of the harshest conditions in the world, pushing traditional sensors beyond their limits. Sensors in these environments yield unreliable or incomplete data, and incur costly, labor-intensive maintenance with no benefit to overall system performance or safety.
ORNL’s Nuclear and Extreme Environments Measurements group (NEEM) addresses these challenges through the design, testing, and analysis of durable instrumentation that provides high-quality, actionable data crucial to maintaining the competitiveness and security of U.S. nuclear infrastructure.
Expertise & Capabilities
Expertise & Capabilities
NEEM researchers represent broad expertise in instrumentation, nuclear environments and their effects on sensors, and complex modeling and signal processing. The group’s core capabilities include:
- Designing and evaluating context-specific instrumentation, sensors, and edge signal processing technologies to extract critical information in challenging environments.
- Developing, deploying, and validating optical fiber sensors to measure temperature, strain, vibroacoustics, corrosion, radiation, flow, and reactor power.
- Advancing semiconductor fabrication methods for neutron detection and radiation hardened electronics.
- Standardization of molten salt property characterization methods, including density, thermal conductivity, and viscosity.
With these combined capabilities, NEEM researchers are enabling the development of new measurement systems for experiments in fundamental science and for commercial validation.
Collaborations and Milestones
NEEM’s impact is amplified through strategic partnerships with national laboratories, academia, industry, and government agencies including:
- Optical Fiber Sensing Initiatives: Advancing fiber‑optic sensing for commercial reactor diagnostics, in collaboration with Departments of Energy and Defense sponsors.
- Mock Reactor Development: In collaboration with NASA, the groupcontributes to integrated system modeling and hardware-in-the-loop platforms that simulate nuclear thermal propulsion systems, enabling tomorrow’s deep space missions.
- Molten Salt Projects: Collaborating with university and DOE programs to refine instrumentation and methodologies, ensuring reliable property data for next-generation reactor concepts.
- High-Temperature Neutron Detector Testing: Partnering with Ultra Energy Limited to validate a high-temperature detector.
Through rigorous development, NEEM equips its partners with tools to lead in nuclear innovation and national security.
Using advanced optoelectronic measurement science and deep expertise in the real-world challenges of instrument design and deployment, the group is working toward the safe and efficient operation of advanced nuclear systems.
