YANG LIU
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Area of Specialisation: Creep and hydrogen investigation inside Zircaloy by dislocation density based crystal plasticity modelling
Working across Key Challenge 2, Key Challenge 4.
Yang Liu joined Imperial College London in 2019, focused on crystal plasticity modelling and understanding the micro-scale phenomenon inside hexagon-closed-packed (HCP) materials. During the MIDAS program, the creep bending behavior is investigated near notched zircaloy. The large grain-level creep accumulation is experimentally observed by digital image correlation (DIC) and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), which is well predicted by the crystal plasticity modelling to reveal the high heterogeneity of local strain rate sensitivity. The material properties obtained is utilised to develop a multi-scale multi-physics model to potentially capture the hydride formation during the cyclic thermo-mechanical load of the zircaloy.
Yang is eager to extend this work towards modelling of hydride formation and crack propagation during the delayed hydride cracking and to study the irradiation damage inside zircaloys.