Dr Philipp Frankel
Principal Investigator (2021 onwards)
Member of the Management Group
Co-Lead (Experimental ) of Key Challenge 4
Philipp Frankel is a Dalton Institute and Rolls-Royce-sponsored Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Materials at the University of Manchester. His current research focuses on the degradation of nuclear materials and the impact of irradiation damage. He has led Pellet Cladding Interaction (PCI) and irradiation work packages for the EPSRC PACFICI and CaFFE programmes, as well as leading Manchester activities for the EU Horizon 2020 “Il Trovatore” programme on innovative cladding materials for advanced accident-tolerant energy systems.
Philipp studied for an Engineering Doctorate at the University of Birmingham, in collaboration with Rolls-Royce, investigating the influence of residual stresses arising during processing, and in-service performance of aerospace materials. He has been involved with the Zirconium Group at Manchester since working as a postdoctroal research associate on the EPSRC MUZIC collaborative project, and is one of the group academic leads.
His research interests lie in understanding degradation mechanisms in both nuclear and aerospace materials, with a particular emphasis on using state-of-the-art characterisation tools to investigate microstructural changes, phase transformation and residual stress evolution during production and in-service. He is an active user of large-scale research facilities, particularly synchrotron and neutron facilities, including the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, BESSY II, Diamond and ISIS in Oxfordshire, and the Dalton Cumbrian Facility.