Benjamin Beeler

Assistant Professor of Nuclear Engineering, Joint Faculty Appointment with INL

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

Ph.D. 2013

Nuclear and Radiological Engineering

Georgia Institute of Technology

M.S. 2011

Nuclear and Radiological Engineering

Georgia Institute of Technology

B.S. 2008

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

View all publications via NC State Libraries

View publications on Google Scholar

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)