Michael Billone is the Irradiation Performance Lead in Argonne National Laboratory’s Nuclear Science and Engineering division. He has 45 years of experience in the behavior of metallic and ceramic fuels, and structural materials used in fission and fusion nuclear reactor designs. This experience includes modeling the irradiation, thermal and mechanical behavior of these materials in fission and fusion reactor environments. The modeling has been used in pre-test and post-test analyses of single-effects and integral-effects experiments, as well as in performance predictions for reactor designs.

For the past 20 years, he has directed experimental work on light-water-reactor cladding embrittlement for fuel rods irradiated to high burnup and subjected to in-reactor loss-of-coolant accidents and post-reactor spent-nuclear-fuel cask accidents.

Prior to coming to Argonne, Billone was an associate professor for six years in the Mechanical Engineering Department of Northwestern University.

Awards, Honors & Memberships

• American Society of Mechanical Engineers
• American Society of Nuclear Engineers
• University of Chicago Distinguished Performance Award (2005)
• Peer reviewer, Journal of Nuclear Materials, Journal of Nuclear Technology, Zirconium in the Nuclear Industry, and Measurement

Publications & Patents

• M.C. Billone, T.A. Burtseva, and Y.Y. Liu, ​“Mechanical Properties of High-Burnup Fuel Cladding during Dry-Cask Storage and Transport, abstract accepted for ASME 2013 International Conference on Environmental Remediation and Radioactive Waste Management (ICEM-2013), Brussels, Belgium, Sept. 8-12, 2013.
• M.C. Billone, T.A. Burtseva, and Y.Y. Liu, ​“Baseline Properties and DBTT of High-Burnup PWR Fuel Cladding Alloys,” abstract accepted for International Symposium on the Packaging and Transportation of Radioactive Materials (PATRAM-2013), San Francisco, CA, Aug. 18-23, 2013.
• M.C. Billone, T.A. Burtseva, and Y.Y. Liu, ​“Effects of Drying and Storage on High-Burnup Cladding Ductility,” paper accepted for presentation (and publication) at the ANS-sponsored International High-Level Radioactive Waste Management Conference, Albuquerque, NM, Apr. 28 –May 2, 2013.
• M.C. Billone, T.A. Burtseva, and R.E. Einziger, ​“Ductile-to-brittle transition temperature for high-burnup cladding alloys exposed to simulated drying-storage conditions,” Journal of Nuclear Materials 433 (2013) 431-448
• M.C. Billone, Assessment of Current Test Methods for Post-LOCA Behavior, NUREG/CR-7139, ANL-11/52 (2012).
• Y. Yan, T.A. Burtseva, and M.C. Billone, ​“High-temperature steam-oxidation behavior of Zr-1Nb cladding alloy E110,” Journal of Nuclear Materials 393 (2009) 433-448.
• M. Billone, Y. Yan, T. Burtseva, and R. Daum, Cladding Embrittlement during Postulated Loss-of-Coolant Accidents, NUREG/CR-6967 (2008).
• Daum, R.S. Majumdar, S., and Billone, M.C.  ​“Experimental and Analytical Investigation of the Mechanical Behavior of High-Burnup Zircaloy-4 Fuel Cladding.” Journal of ASTM International, Vol. 5, No. 5, Paper ID JAI101209 (2008).
• Daum, R.S., Majumdar, S., Liu, Y.Y., and Billone M.C. ​“Radial-hydride Embrittlement of High-burnup Zircaloy-4 Fuel Cladding.” Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, Vol. 43, No. 9, Paper 4309O (2006).
• H. Tsai and M.C. Billone, ​“Thermal Creep of Irradiated Zircaloy Cladding,” Journal of ASTM International, Vol.3, No. 1, Paper ID JAI12425 (2006).

Education

• Engineering Sciences, B.A., Dartmouth College, 1965
• Mechanical Engineering, B.E., Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College, 1966
• Mechanical Engineering, Ph.D., Northwestern University, 1972