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Abstract submission deadline 27 February 2026
Track 1: Thermodynamics and Thermal Properties of Nuclear Fuels and Materials
Thermodynamic modelling
Database development with the CALPHAD method
Phase equilibria measurements
Measurement of heat capacity, thermal diffusivity, and other properties
Track 2: Structural and Functional Materials
Reactor pressure vessels
Containment structural materials
Concrete
Reactor internals
Material property measurements, including Strength, Ductility, Toughness and Fracture Toughness
Irradiation-Assisted Creep
Plasma Facing and Refractory Structural Materials
Flow-Assisted Corrosion
Additive & Advanced Manufacturing of Nuclear Materials
Polymers, cables, and seals
Track 3: Modelling and Simulation of Nuclear Fuels
Electronic structure (e.g. Density functional theory)
Short timescale atomistic simulations (e.g. binary collision approximation, molecular dynamics, interaction potentials)
Defect and microstructure evolution (e.g. accelerated dynamics, kinetic Monte Carlo, phase-field, radiation defects)
Fuel performance modelling across scales (including FCCI, Gen-IV fuels)
Track 4: Modelling and Simulation of Structural Materials
Electronic structure (e.g. density functional theory)
Short timescale atomistic simulations (e.g. binary collision approximation, molecular dynamics, interaction potentials)
Defect and microstructure evolution (e.g. accelerated dynamics, kinetic Monte Carlo, phase-field, cluster dynamics, dislocation dynamics)
Structure–property relationships (linking defects to macroscopic behaviour, predictive models)
Continuum and component scale (e.g. finite element analysis, peridynamics)
Track 5: Behaviour of Materials During Severe Accidents
Modelling with severe accident codes
Separate effects experiments
Integral experiments
Corium material properties
Track 6: Radiation Damage Processes in Materials Radiation enhanced creep
Radiation induced phase transformations
Radiation damage of metallic alloys
Radiation effects on corrosion
In Situ Characterization of Radiation Damage
Microstructural Changes in Irradiated Structural Materials
Track 7: Characterization of Irradiated Fuels and Materials, and Techniques
Electron microscopy of irradiated materials
Fission product chemistry of irradiated fuel
Rapid Nuclear Fuel Fabrication and Testing
Research and Test Reactor Fuels
Spent Fuel Degradation
Accident Tolerant Fuels
Behaviour of instrumentation materials
Instrumentation and techniques development
Track 8: Materials for the Nuclear Fuel Cycle
Uranium resources, production, and demand
Uranium mining, milling, and refining
Reprocessing and recycling
Alternate fuel cycles, including thorium
Used fuel disposal
Non-proliferation and safeguards
Your submission should be in the form of text, no more than 300 words long. If your abstract is accepted, it will be included in our online abstract link that will be distributed to all conference participants. All abstracts will be reviewed by the Committee to ensure that the topic of the submission is consistent with the scope of the topics covered at the meeting. Once the abstracts are accepted, at least one of the authors must register for and present at the conference. Successfully submitted abstracts will be acknowledged with an electronic receipt including an abstract reference number, which should be quoted in all correspondence. Allow at least 2 hours for your receipt to be returned to you.
For revisions or queries regarding papers already submitted:
If you do not receive acknowledgement for your abstract submission or you wish to make any essential revisions to an abstract already submitted, please do not resubmit your abstract, as this may lead to duplication. Please contact the Conference Content Executive with details of any revisions or queries. Please quote your reference number if you have one.
Please do not email credit card information under any circumstances.
Robert Cahn Award
The Journal of Nuclear Materials and the committee of NuMat 2026, the Nuclear Materials Conference, are requesting written nominations from our scientific community for the 2026 Robert Cahn Award.
The purpose of the award is to recognise an outstanding scientist who has:
a high scientific profile in the field of nuclear materials
the ability to communicate science to a broad audience
demonstrated interest in breaking down barriers between different scientific disciplines
The winner of the 2026 award will be invited to give a keynote lecture at the next NuMat Conference in Canada, 21–24 September 2026.
The nomination should contain the name of your nominee, his/her CV, and a summary of his/her scientific merit and research impact. The award is open to anyone in the field, although unfortunately self-nominations cannot be accepted.
Please send nominations to the Publisher of the journal, Rachel Garland ([email protected]).
The deadline for nominations is 5 December 2025 at midnight BST, and notification of the award winner will appear on the websites of both the journal, Journal of Nuclear Materials and the conference, NuMat 2026. The award will be presented at the NuMat 2026 Conference in Halifax, Canada.
Deadline for nominations: 5 December 2025 at midnight BST
Previous recipients of the award:
Professor Robin Grimes FRS FREng, Imperial College London, UK (NuMat 2024, Singapore)
Yves Brechet, Saint Gobain, France and Monash University, USA (NuMat 2022, Ghent, Belgium)
Professor Steven Zinkle, University of Texas/Oak Ridge National Lab, USA (NuMat 2010, Karlsruhe, Germany)
Professor Sydney Yip, MIT, USA (NuMat 2012, Osaka, Japan)
Dr Claudio Ronchi, JCR-ITU, Germany (NuMat 2014, Clearwater, USA)
Professor Srikumar Banerjee, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, India (NuMat 2016, Montpellier, France)
Professor Rodney Ewing, Stanford University, USA (NuMat 2018, Seattle, USA)
Dr. Robert S. Averback, Professor Emeritus of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (NuMat 2020 online)
Robert Cahn was a formidable scientist and credited by many as being a physicist who by his writings, teachings, and experiments in metallurgy, effectively created the field of materials science. An outstanding editor, he helped found the Journal of Nuclear Materials and three other journals. He set up and edited three series of books and three technical encyclopedias on materials science, and his energetic promotion of the subject was instrumental in defining it. He was also a prolific author. He wrote more than 200 scientific papers and wrote or edited some 25 books. He also wrote about 130 short articles, mainly for Nature magazine, about materials science for scientists with primary expertise in other branches of science. Even long into retirement, Robert was always willing and happy to give us the benefit of his great experience and wisdom whenever we had an idea that we wanted to explore. He travelled extensively, lectured frequently in many places, and often in several languages. He believed passionately that science needs to be communicated in a way that is clear and engaging for people from all backgrounds and cultures; and he felt strongly that Science itself should not be broken down into ghettos of knowledge.
NuMart Image Competition
Deadline for entries: 6 February 2026
NuMART is an image competition that runs at the NuMAT conference series and is meant primarily for those who are expecting to attend the conference (but not exclusively).
Please share with us your most striking images of nuclear materials, in all their shapes, forms and colours! We will consider micrographs, data visualizations, or a mixture of both – if they are striking and (potentially) meaningful.
All entries will be judged by the chairs of the forthcoming conference, and up to 20 will be selected. We ask that the selected entries get printed in a format no larger than an A3 (29.7 x 42.0cm, 11.69 x 16.53 inches) and those will be displayed at NuMAT 2026, 21–24 September 2026, Halifax, Canada.
The attendees of NuMAT will then be able to vote on via the conference app and entries . Please send entries to the Publisher of the journal, Rachel Garland ([email protected]).
The winning entry will then be featured on the following issue of The Journal of Nuclear Materials.
Please submit the image as a JPG or PNG, with a size limit of up to 10 MB – we may request a high-resolution image from the winner at a later stage.
Closing date for entries: 6 February 2026
2025 Winner
Elsevier Family Support Award
We are excited to announce that Elsevier has provided funds to help supplement the costs related to childcare responsibilities for early-career researchers attending our NuMat 2026. We understand that, in both academia and industry, the years following the completion of a doctoral degree are critical for exposure, recognition, and networking in order to secure or maintain a position. For many scientists, these years also coincide with starting a family, making it difficult to achieve a work-life balance and embrace one’s career objectives. Up to $500 per award will be granted by Elsevier to students, postdocs, and/or young investigators (within your first 5 years). Delegates with accepted abstracts are eligible for this award (awarded on a first come first serve basis).
If you and your family would benefit from a Family Support Award, please complete the application form and mail to [email protected]. These awards are available to early career researchers to supplement costs related to childcare responsibilities.