Mission

Integrity assessment of nuclear reactor internals and of components of the primary coolant system, as well as of embrittlement of pressure vessel steels.

Develop small specimen test techniques, non-destructive methods, and analytical and numerical analysis to determine materials properties evolution in harsh environments.

Teaching for the Master in Nuclear Engineering and education of young scientists in the field of nuclear materials and fuel.

Biography

Philippe Spätig is currently Adjunct Professor at EPFL in the School of Basic Sciences, in the Laboratory of Reactor Physics and Systems Behaviours. He obtained his diploma of Engineer Physicist at EPFL in 1991 and his PhD at EPFL in 1995 on the role of thermal activation in the plasticity of the intermetallic Ni3Al.
From 1995 to 1997, he worked as postdoc in the Materials Group of the Center for Research in Plasma Physics at EPFL, studying the effects of high-energy proton irradiation on alloys and pure metals. He then moved to the University of California Santa Barbara and spent two years in the group of Professor G.R. Odette, working on fracture mechanics of ferritic structural steels.
He joined again the Materials Group of the Center for Research in Plasma Physics at EPFL in 2000 and worked in this group until the end of 2012. His research was focused on irradiation hardening and embrittlement of steels, as well as on the development of oxide dispersion strengthened steels. He also worked and developed experimental and analytical small specimen test techniques to reliably extract mechanical properties from limited material volume.
In 2013, he joined the Laboratory for Nuclear Materials at Paul Scherrer Institute, while being associated with the Laboratory for Reactor Physics and System Behaviours at EPFL. Since then he mainly works on environmentally-assisted fatigue and fracture on austenitic and pressure vessel steels, where the effects of light water reactor environment on mechanical properties are investigated.