Despite the very demanding operational environment in nuclear reactors, there have been relatively few advanced high-performance materials introduced into fission reactors during the past 50 years. Some of the regulatory and operational barriers to the introduction of high performance materials are briefly discussed, and several examples of potential improvement in current and planned fission reactor systems that could be enabled by advanced structural materials for in-core applications are outlined. Enhanced non-proprietary public-private research and development on advanced structural materials could yield numerous performance, economic, environmental and safety benefits for current boiling water and pressurized water reactors as well as future Generation IV reactor systems such as sodium cooled fast reactors or very high temperature gas cooled reactors.

尽管核反应堆的运行环境要求很高，但在过去的50年中，几乎没有将先进的高性能材料引入裂变反应堆中。简要讨论了引入高性能材料的一些监管和操作障碍，并概述了当前和计划中的裂变反应堆系统的潜在改进实例，这些示例可通过用于核内应用的先进结构材料来实现。加强对高级结构材料的非专利性公私合营研究和开发可以产生许多性能，经济效益，