Johan Öijerholm

Role: Specialist Experimental design and electrochemistry

Department: Specialists

Bio: Master degree in Materials and PhD in Corrosion Science. Lives in Stockholm with his wife and son. Hopes that his son will share his interest in golf when older. Enjoys a good day by a lake fishing. Misses the accessibility of the Swedish nature when abroad.

“Knowledge and experience must be combined from many areas”

Johan Öijerholm grew up in Arboga, a small town in the southern part of Sweden. He got his interest in science from his father and after doing his military service he chose to move to Stockholm for university studies. Johan joined Studsvik as project manager in 2007 and since a couple of years he is specialist in Experimental design and electrochemistry.

 

Can you describe what your role in Studsvik includes?

“In most cases I follow a project from the idea stage to the final reporting or delivery. I usually enter a project in the initiation phase by defining it together with the customer. This is often the most difficult phase of the project but also very stimulating. My field of expertise is within design of experimental rigs for studies of various forms of corrosion or corrosion related processes occurring in nuclear reactors. Examples are flow accelerated corrosion, stress corrosion cracking and uptake of neutron activated corrosion products on system surfaces. I have also worked with specimen preparation and mechanical testing of irradiated materials. An example of the latter is surveillance testing of reactor pressure vessel steel.

 

Describe something Studsvik has supported a customer with that you are especially proud of.

“At Studsvik we are several co-workers that for many years have been performing characterization and testing of materials for the development of fusion reactors. Personally, I have mainly been involved in characterization of various alloys with respect to stress corrosion cracking under the demanding conditions which prevail in the cooling circuits intended for fusion reactors. Testing of copper-based alloys intended for heat sinks with respect to erosion-corrosion under similar conditions has also been and is an important topic. The choice of copper for the cooling system is due to its high thermal conductivity. That property is needed since the components which are cooled by the water flowing inside the heat sinks face a plasma which has a temperature of up to 150 million degrees centigrade. Another area where Studsvik has performed work aimed at fusion technology is testing of mechanical properties of alloys for structural application and how these s properties change under neutron irradiation. I am proud that we can support the fusion concept with our expertise.”

 

What is innovation to you and how does that influence your work in Studsvik?

“Innovation is solving problems in better ways and thus creating a more useful result, service or product for our customers. To achieve this at Studsvik we work in teams since knowledge and experience must be combined from many areas, such as plant operation, chemistry, materials science and testing techniques from the lab. “