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On moving fast and breaking things
Craig Piercycpiercy@ans.org
So much of what is happening in federal nuclear policy these days seems driven by a common approach popularized in the technology sector. Silicon Valley calls it “move fast and break things,” a phrase originally associated with Facebook’s early culture under Mark Zuckerberg. The idea emerged in the early 2000s as software companies discovered that rapid iteration, frequent experimentation, and a willingness to tolerate failure could dramatically accelerate innovation. This philosophy helped drive the growth of the social media, smartphones, cloud computing, and digital platforms that now underpin modern economic and social life.
Today, that mindset is also influencing federal nuclear policy. The Trump administration views accelerated nuclear deployment as part of a broader competition with China for technological and AI leadership. In that context, it seems willing to accept greater operational risk in pursuit of strategic advantage and long-term economic and security objectives.
R. Carlander, S. D. Harkness, F. L. Yaggee
Nuclear Technology | Volume 7 | Number 1 | July 1969 | Pages 67-75
Material | doi.org/10.13182/NT69-A28387
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Tensile properties of irradiated Type-304 stainless steel have been measured. These results have been correlated with microstructural observations obtained by optical and transmission electron microscopy techniques. The material studied was irradiated in a fast-neutron environment to a peak exposure of 4.8 × 1022 n/cm2 at temperatures ranging from 371 to 463°C in the EBR-II reactor. True yield stresses were observed to increase, and true uniform strains to decrease with both increasing neutron exposure and decreasing irradiation temperature for test temperatures <750°C. At 750°C no increases in true yield stresses over control values were noted while sharp decreases in true uniform strains were observed. It is suggested that some annealing of the microstructure occurs at this elevated temperature, allowing helium to be accumulated at grain boundaries. Microstructural examination by transmission electron microscopy revealed homogeneous distributions of polyhedral voids and Frank dislocation loops. Neither deject was observed to form on grain boundaries. It is suggested that the dislocation loop formation is primarily responsible for the increased strength of the irradiated material. Immersion density measurements are included. These results indicate that the peak void formation did not occur at the maximum flux position, thus indicating the importance of temperature to the phenomenon.