Grant Helmreich

Grant graduated in 2009 with a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering, a B.A. in Chemistry, and a minor in Math. He completed a M.S. degree in Nuclear Engineering in which he studied the development of low-temperature sintering methods for fabrication of metallic nuclear fuels containing actinides from recycled spent fuel. He completed a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering that focused on understanding and mitigating fuel-cladding chemical interactions in sodium fast reactors, specifically the reaction between lanthanide fission products and steel cladding. That work resulted in a patent filed by the sponsor, TerraPower LLC, and is used in their design for a Traveling Wave Reactor. He currently live in Knoxville, Tennessee, and is a research staff member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the Fusion Materials and Nuclear Science Division. His work for the past few years has been focused on Tri-Structural Isotropic (TRISO) particle fuels, which are being developed for use in advanced gas reactors by companies such as X-energy LLC. His focus is on the development of novel characterization methods in support of both improving fabrication methods and enhancing fuel specifications, which are used to guarantee good fuel performance in-reactor.