David Bottomley

Paul David W. Bottomley is Head of Sector in the Safety of Irradiated Nuclear Materials unit at the Joint Research Centre – Institute for Transuranium Elements (JRC-ITU) at Karlsruhe, Germany. 

He received his first degree (Natural Sciences) at Queens’ College, Cambridge in 1974. He went on to the University of Manchester Institute of Science & Technology (UMIST) to obtain his MSc and PhD (Electrochemistry of Turbine alloys) in 1977-80.

Thereafter he went to INP Toulouse, Ecole de Chemie (ENSCT) to continue working as a CNRS researcher on high temperature corrosion resistance in 1980-81.

In 1984-85, he worked as a Research Fellow at the JRC – Institute for Advanced Materials, Petten, Netherlands, working on High Temperature Gaseous Corrosion of High Alloy Steels. 

He then returned to UMIST, Manchester and worked for 4 years in their Corrosion consultancy service (CAPCIS) in various fields.

Finally in 1987 he took up his current post as Scientific Officer at the JRC – Transuranium Institute (JRC-ITU) in Karlsruhe, Germany working in the Hot Cells Technology unit. He has written about 60 papers in various aspects from fuel degradation/melting to fission product chemistry, deposition and revaporisation as well as fuel under waste repository conditions.

Much time has been spent in severe accident studies: firstly examination of TMI-2 debris samples under the OECD –NEA programme from 1988 to 1991, then followed involvement in the joint IRSN-EC Phébus PF project, investigating irradiated fuel bundle degradation and the subsequent fission product deposition behaviour over 20 years period (1991 to 2012).

His current involvement in high temperature properties of reactor materials using simulated molten material attempts to understand the fuel degradation mechanisms observed in severe accident projects.