Engineering Development & Applications

Dr. Billone has 40 years of experience in the behavior of metallic and ceramic fuels and structural materials used in fission and fusion nuclear reactor designs. This experience includes modeling the irradiation, thermal and mechanical behavior of these materials in fission and fusion reactor environments. The modeling has been used in pre-test and post-test analyses of single-effects and integral-effects experiments, as well as performance predictions for reactor designs. For the past 12 years, he has directed experimental work on light-water-reactor cladding embrittlement for fuel rods irradiated to high burnup and subjected to in-reactor loss-of-coolant accidents and post-reactor spent-nuclear-fuel cask accidents.

Currently, Dr. Billone is the Manager of the Irradiation Performance Section within the Nuclear Engineering Division at Argonne National Laboratory. In addition to his research experience, Dr. Billone was an associate professor for six years in the Mechanical Engineering Department of Northwestern University.