Benjamin Beeler
Assistant Professor of Nuclear Engineering, Joint Faculty Appointment with INL

- 919-515-3737
- bwbeeler@ncsu.edu
- Burlington Laboratory 1110C
- Visit My Website
Dr. Beeler received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Nuclear and Radiological Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He was a post-doctoral researcher jointly at the University of California, Davis and the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining the NC State faculty, he was a computational scientist in the Computational Microstructure Science group in the Fuels Modeling and Simulation department at Idaho National Laboratory. He is the current lead of the Microstructure Fuel Performance Modeling working group for the United Stated High Performance Research Reactor program.
Education
Nuclear and Radiological Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Nuclear and Radiological Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Nuclear and Radiological Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Research Description
His professional interests are atomistic description and evolution of nuclear fuel and structural materials. He has extensive experience on interatomic potential development, particularly related to uranium and uranium-alloys. He has studied a number of phenomena in nuclear materials including radiation damage, effects of strain on point defects, diffusion, free surface and grain boundary properties, fission gas bubbles, thermal transport and optical properties. His research has primarily utilized density functional theory, molecular dynamics and phase-field methods.
Publications
- An atomistic study of fundamental bulk and defect properties in alpha-uranium
- Wang, Y., Beeler, B., & Jokisaari, A. (2023), JOURNAL OF NUCLEAR MATERIALS, 576. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnucmat.2023.154289
- Computational determination of a primary diffusion mode in gamma U-10Mo under irradiation
- Park, G., Beeler, B., & Okuniewski, M. A. (2023), JOURNAL OF NUCLEAR MATERIALS, 574. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnucmat.2022.154137
Evaluation of thermophysical properties of the LiCl-KCl system via ab initio and experimental methods
- Duemmler, K., Lin, Y., Woods, M., Karlsson, T., Gakhar, R., & Beeler, B. (2022), JOURNAL OF NUCLEAR MATERIALS, 559. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnucmat.2021.153414
- Ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulations of NaCl, UCl3 and NaCl-UCl3 molten salts
- Andersson, D. A., & Beeler, B. W. (2022), JOURNAL OF NUCLEAR MATERIALS, 568. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnucmat.2022.153836
- Ab initio molecular dynamics investigation of gamma-(U,Zr) structural and thermal properties as a function of temperature and composition
- Aly, A., Beeler, B., & Avramova, M. (2022), JOURNAL OF NUCLEAR MATERIALS, 561. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnucmat.2022.153523
- An ab initio molecular dynamics investigation of the thermophysical properties of molten NaCl-MgCl2
- Duemmler, K., Woods, M., Karlsson, T., Gakhar, R., & Beeler, B. (2022), JOURNAL OF NUCLEAR MATERIALS, 570. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnucmat.2022.153916
- Analyzing the effect of pressure on the properties of point defects in ?U-Mo through atomistic simulations (vol 15, pg 874. 2022)
- Beeler, B., Zhang, Y., Hasan, A. T. M. J., Park, G., Hu, S., & Mei, Z.-G. (2022, December 5), MRS ADVANCES, Vol. 12. https://doi.org/10.1557/s43580-022-00436-7
- Analyzing the effect of pressure on the properties of point defects in gamma U-Mo through atomistic simulations
- Beeler, B., Zhang, Y., Hasan, A. T. M. J., Park, G., Hu, S., & Mei, Z.-G. (2022, October 13), MRS ADVANCES, Vol. 10. https://doi.org/10.1557/s43580-022-00350-y
- Investigation of ?-(U, Zr) structural properties and its interfacial properties with liquid sodium using ab initio molecular dynamics
- Aly, A., Beeler, B., & Avramova, M. (2022), JOURNAL OF NUCLEAR MATERIALS, 567. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnucmat.2022.153835
- The impact of anisotropic thermal expansion on the isothermal annealing of polycrystalline alpha-uranium
- Jokisaari, A. M., Mahbuba, K., Wang, Y., & Beeler, B. (2022), COMPUTATIONAL MATERIALS SCIENCE, 205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.commatsci.2022.111217
Grants
- Mechanical Response and Chemical effects at the Fuel-cladding Interface of HT-9 and Metallic Fuel
- US Dept. of Energy (DOE)(10/01/22 - 9/30/25)
- Modeling and Characterization of α-uranium to Accelerate Metallic Fuels Development
- US Dept. of Energy (DOE)(1/21/20 - 9/30/22)
- Radiation Enhanced Diffusion in UMo
- US Dept. of Energy (DOE)(2/07/20 - 9/30/23)
- Ab Initio Modeling of Molten Salts
- US Dept. of Energy (DOE)(3/09/20 - 9/30/22)