Oxidation is an important factor limiting the operational lifetime of metals. In this work, density functional theory (DFT) computations were utilized to study the role of grain boundaries (GBs) in the oxidation of a body-centered cubic (bcc) metal. Two tilt symmetric GBs were generated, and the thermodynamics and kinetics of interstitial oxygen in the system were examined, indicating a propensity for O to segregate to these GBs. Structure-property relationships correlating GB oxygen coverage with the GB strength were also established. Finally, a kinetic Monte Carlo (kMC) model was developed to study the influence of microstructure on the oxidation kinetics. Specifically, the effects of grain size, grain morphology, and grain orientation on the oxidation kinetics were noted. This work may offer some insights into the design of next-generation oxidation-resistant structural materials.

Mr. McLagan is an astronautical engineering student at the Air Force Institute of Technology. His research consists of materials science topics, including density functional theory analysis on the effect of oxygen in refractory metal grain boundaries. Colin graduated from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University with a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering. He plans to graduate in March 2026 and work in the aerospace industry.

Mr. Mysonhimer is currently a nuclear engineering student in the Engineering Physics department at the Air Force Institute of Technology. Prior to attending AFIT, Matt got his bachelor's in chemical engineering with a minor in nuclear engineering from The Ohio State University. He is currently the President of the AFIT ANS chapter, and will graduate from AFIT in June of this year.

Mr. Alshannaq is a Ph.D. student in Nuclear Engineering, with a specialization in nuclear fuel performance modeling, the evolution of materials microstructure in extreme environments, and its impact on fuel thermal properties.

This study explores the response of Al-Ni alloys and compounds under shock loading with the use of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. First, the study examines the effects of shocking FCC nickel aluminum solid solutions with 1, 4, and 6.5 at% aluminum. The study also explores the effect of crystallographic orientation on shocking intermetallic compounds AlNi3 along the [001], [011], and [111] directions. The analysis then continues onto superalloys, shocking Ni matrices with AlNi3 precipitates. Superalloy-based simulations are conducted with precipitates of varying volume and position to better observe their effect on shock propagation. The Hugioniot and equations of state are derived for each simulation, and metastable melting is analyzed.

Mr. Nagy is an applied physics student in the Engineering Physics department at the Air Force Institute of Technology. Prior to attending AFIT, Mr. Nagy got his bachelor's in physics with a minor in mathematics from Ohio University. He is scheduled to graduate this June.

This work presents a new interatomic potential for tungsten trioxide (WO₃), fit to structural and mechanical data across multiple phases. The resulting potential is used to compute equations of state and assess phase stability. The potential was further utilized to construct an array of tilt grain boundary (GB) configurations and test their mechanical properties, thermal conductivity, and vacancy diffusion behaviors. The results revealed a strong dependence of ductility and ultimate tensile stress on grain boundary character. Enhanced thermal conductivity and diffusion along the grain boundary tilt axis was observed. Diffusion studies in the tilt GBs led to three classes of migration barriers: the lowest were associated with hops within the GB (and especially along the tilt axis), bulk-like hopping sufficiently far from the GBs, and high migration barriers associated with escaping the GB region.

Samuel Wagers is a second year PhD student at the Air Force Institute of Technology.  Sam has a bachelor of science in physics from The Ohio State University and a mjaster of science in physics from the University of Cincinnati.  

Surface-mediated contamination remains a persistent challenge in laboratory and defense environments. This research investigates whether atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurements of surface interaction forces can predict how contamination particles transfer and adhere across common laboratory materials. By characterizing electrostatic and total adhesion forces under controlled humidity conditions, this work establishes a quantitative link between surface properties and particle behavior. The results support improved material selection and contamination mitigation strategies in sensitive operational settings.

Maj. Myers is a master’s student at Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. He studies in the Department of Nuclear Engineering, and his master’s research focuses on laboratory contamination. Prior to attending AFIT, he got his bachelor's in Physics at the Air Force Academy. He gained operational experience during his assignments in MCNP Model and Simulation, Nuclear Safety and Surety for US and NATO F-16 A/B/C/D, Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction, Quantum Information Sciences, HF Communications, and finally Software Defined Radios.

This presentation focuses on the development of a Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) of an innovative Thermal Power Dispatch (TPD) system for Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) within the Flexible Plant Operation and Generation (FPOG) Program. It underscores the importance of Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) in evaluating risks and safety associated with utilizing NPPs for hydrogen production via high-temperature steam electrolysis (HTSE). By proposing a TPD system that allows thermal power extraction, the study addresses potential hazards and emphasizes the need for stringent safety assessments to maintain safety standards, reinforcing the role of nuclear power in the evolving energy landscape.

Mr. Rodrigues earned his bachelor's degree in Energy Engineering from the Federal University of Grande Dourados in Brazil in 2021. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Nuclear Engineering at The Ohio State University, with a concentration in Reliability and Risk Engineering. Under the mentorship of Dr. Carol Smidts, Vinicius is working on innovative methodologies for the reliability and risk assessment of complex engineering systems in their early development stages. He is a strong advocate for the potential of nuclear energy to significantly contribute to global energy needs while mitigating carbon emissions. In addition to his research, Vinicius holds the position of President of the American Nuclear Society Student Section at OSU.

Axions are hypothetical pseudo-Goldstone bosons arising from the Peccei–Quinn mechanism proposed to resolve the strong CP problem in quantum chromodynamics (QCD). The introduction of an axion field modifies the effective QCD theta parameter and can induce small corrections to hadronic interactions through mechanisms such as axion–pion mixing and axion–nucleon coupling. Condensed matter systems with nontrivial band topology provide experimentally accessible realizations of analogous topological electromagnetic responses. By analyzing axion-induced modifications to the effective field description exhibiting Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect and resulting observable responses, interactions between external axion fields and topological condensed matter systems may produce detectable deviations from conventional topological electromagnetic behavior.

Major Brian McLaughlin is currently a nuclear engineering student in the Engineering Physics department at the Air Force Institute of Technology. Prior to attending AFIT, Brian got his bachelor's in nuclear engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He will graduate from AFIT in June of this year.

Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) color centers, common point defects in a diamond lattice whose fluorescence properties enable highly sensitive quantification of radiation damage. Incident radiation, including neutrons, induce atomic displacements within the carbon matrix, creating vacancies that can combine with substitutional nitrogen to form new NV centers upon subsequent annealing. Substitutional nitrogen-rich High Pressure High Temperature (HPHT) diamonds, denoted as a Type Ib crystal, have typical concentrations of approximately 10-300 ppm and serve as the host material for this study. This study aims to establish diamond-based optical sensors as a new class of neutron dosimetry that exploits radiation damage itself as the measurement signal rather than treating it as a failure mode. We demonstrate that these sensors can be used as radiation-hardened, miniature neutron dosimeters suitable for deployment in the extreme radiation, temperature, and accessibility-limited environments of existing and advanced reactor systems. This work aims to quantify neutron fluence to NV formation by correlating controlled neutron exposures with the NV center density through photoluminescence (PL) intensity and spectra, across fluences relevant to reactor monitoring. In the Ohio State University 500-kW Research Reactor (OSURR) Auxiliary Irradiation Facility (AIF), diamond samples were irradiated at various neutron fluences up to 1 × 1017 n/cm2 to draw correlation between dose and PL intensity. Post-annealing dose dependent fluorescence response exhibits a linear relationship and a maximum fluorescence increase of 40,328.57%. Future efforts will focus on evaluating sensor linearity at higher neutron fluences (≥10¹⁸ n/cm²) and examining the lower limits of detection.

Mr. Shoen is a 3rd year PhD student in the Nuclear Analysis and Radiation Sensor Lab studying under Dr. Raymond Cao. Luke is working on radiation dosimetry using Nitrogen-Vacancy centers in diamond for use in high-temperature, high-flux environments, such as a nuclear reactor. Luke has done previous work on radiation effects on 7-series FPGAs and has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Mount Vernon Nazarene University.

Fast neutron imaging offers an attractive alternative to thermal neutron imaging due to the portable nature of DD and DT neutron generators and the ability to penetrate materials that thermal neutrons are unable to. The current technology for fast neutron detection for imaging is limited in achieving high spatial resolution, strong neutron discrimination, and the practical ability to make complex geometries. Traditional fast neutron detector fabrication methods require days to weeks of thermal polymerization and significant additional labor to produce sufficient dimensional resolution plastic scintillator arrays. The present work helps to reduce this limitation by developing additive manufacturing techniques to faster construct detectors with similar performance in dual particle applications. In this work, custom-designed rapid light-curing resins produced with commercial manufacturing machinery have shown feature resolution at or below the mm scale while maintaining a curing speed on par with standard vat polymerization techniques and light output comparable to industry standard scintillators. The developed automated assembly machine, designed around a set of programmable robot arms, is shown to be capable of dual alternating layering of individual light-cured resin layers and optical segmentation with a self-bonded enhanced specular reflector. This allows the production of high-precision two-dimensional scintillator arrays in short fabrication times.

Ms. Moore is a PhD candidate in Nuclear Engineering at the Air Force Institute of Technology. He previously earned a master’s degree in nuclear engineering from AFIT and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, with a minor in metallurgical and materials engineering, from the Colorado School of Mines. He is scheduled to graduate this June and has accepted a position with the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to start post-graduation.

Mr. Maier is a fourth-year PhD candidate in the OSU Nuclear Engineering Program. His research primarily focuses on developing and refining non-destructive characterization and assay methods for HALEU fuels.

John McClory has been a Professor of Nuclear Engineering at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) since 2008. He is the Director of the Nuclear Expertise for Advancing Technology (NEAT) Center and Curriculum Chair of the Nuclear Engineering Program. He graduated from the Air Force Institute of Technology with a PhD. in nuclear engineering, Texas A&M University with an M.S. in physics, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a B.S. in physics. Dr. McClory's research interests include the effects of radiation on military equipment and electronics, nuclear forensics techniques, nuclear weapon effects, and nuclear data production. He has advised 22 PhD students (two current) and 43 M.S. students (two current), and published over 100 journal articles during his time on the AFIT faculty. Prior to joining the AFIT faculty, Dr. McClory was a US Army officer and served in various assignments, including as an assistant professor of physics at the United States Military Academy.

Dr. Zach Meisel is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Physics (ENP) at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT). He was previously a Data Scientist in the CBRNE Defense Unit of the National Security Division at Battelle Memorial Institute and, prior to that, an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and Director of the Edwards Accelerator Laboratory at Ohio University. Dr. Meisel was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Notre Dame after earning his BS in Astrophysics and PhD in Physics at Michigan State University. His primary research interests involve nuclear physics for applications and astrophysics, including nuclear physics experiments and modeling of astrophysical and terrestrial environments.

Major Michael Ford is an Assistant Professor at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT). He earned his undergraduate degree in Physics from Michigan State University while working at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, and later received his Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from AFIT, with a focus on radiation detectors and nuclear effects. From 2017 to 2024, Major Ford served as a nuclear effects and environments subject matter expert at the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center, and later managed a technical branch and served as a Section Commander at the Air Force Research Laboratory. His work spans radiation effects on electronics, nuclear environments, and applied radiation measurements.

Dr. Juan J. Manfredi Jr. is an Assistant Professor of Nuclear Engineering in the Department of Engineering Physics at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT). His primary research interests relate to nuclear physics, radiation detection, and atmospheric radiation. Sponsors that have supported Dr. Manfredi’s work include the NNSA, AFRL, and DTRA. He serves as the AFIT PI for the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium (NSSC), an NA-22 funded university consortium led by UC Berkeley. Dr. Manfredi graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 2012 with majors in math and physics. There, he worked with Prof. Lee Sobotka on measurements related to nuclear structure and nuclear astrophysics. Afterwards, he earned his PhD in Physics (2018) under Prof. Betty Tsang at Michigan State University studying nuclear reactions on exotic isotopes. In graduate school, Dr. Manfredi was awarded the Stewardship Science Graduate Fellowship. Before starting at AFIT, Dr. Manfredi was a Postdoctoral Scholar (and then NSSC Postdoctoral Fellow) at the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked with Dr. Bethany Goldblum on scintillator characterization and neutron imaging.

Dr. Praneeth Kandlakunta is a Research Assistant Professor of Nuclear Engineering at The Ohio State University. His work focuses on applications of nuclear science and radiation physics across nuclear non-proliferation, nuclear energy, and healthcare. His research encompasses radiation detection and measurement techniques, nuclear instrumentation and sensor development, radiation source development and optimization, and the evaluation of radiation effects in electronic materials and devices. He integrates Monte Carlo radiation transport simulations with experimental measurements to investigate radiation interactions in materials and devices under complex environments, and to develop predictive models of detector performance and radiation-induced phenomena.