Fission induced swelling and creep of U-Mo alloy fuel

Yeon Soo Kim; G. L. Hofman; J. S. Cheon; A. B. Robinson; D. M. Wachs

doi:10.1016/j.jnucmat.2013.01.346

Fission induced swelling and creep of U-Mo alloy fuel

Yeon Soo Kim, G. L. Hofman, J. S. Cheon, A. B. Robinson, D. M. Wachs

Nuclear Fuels & Materials

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99 Scopus citations

Abstract

Tapering of U-Mo alloy fuel at the end of plates is attributed to lateral mass transfer by fission induced creep, by which fuel mass is relocated away from the fuel end region where fission product induced fuel swelling is in fact the highest. This mechanism permits U-Mo fuel to achieve high burnup by effectively relieving stresses at the fuel end region, where peak stresses are otherwise expected because peak fission product induced fuel swelling occurs there. ABAQUS FEA was employed to examine whether the observed phenomenon can be simulated using physical-mechanical data available in the literature. The simulation results obtained for several plates with different fuel fabrication and loading scheme showed that the measured data were able to be simulated with a reasonable creep rate coefficient. The obtained creep rate constant lies between values for pure uranium and MOX, and is greater than all other ceramic uranium fuels.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	37-46
Number of pages	10
Journal	Journal of Nuclear Materials
Volume	437
Issue number	1-3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnucmat.2013.01.346
State	Published - 2013

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10.1016/j.jnucmat.2013.01.346

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@article{fc3315a6b91748bb8e5486738ca3e2b3,

title = "Fission induced swelling and creep of U-Mo alloy fuel",

abstract = "Tapering of U-Mo alloy fuel at the end of plates is attributed to lateral mass transfer by fission induced creep, by which fuel mass is relocated away from the fuel end region where fission product induced fuel swelling is in fact the highest. This mechanism permits U-Mo fuel to achieve high burnup by effectively relieving stresses at the fuel end region, where peak stresses are otherwise expected because peak fission product induced fuel swelling occurs there. ABAQUS FEA was employed to examine whether the observed phenomenon can be simulated using physical-mechanical data available in the literature. The simulation results obtained for several plates with different fuel fabrication and loading scheme showed that the measured data were able to be simulated with a reasonable creep rate coefficient. The obtained creep rate constant lies between values for pure uranium and MOX, and is greater than all other ceramic uranium fuels.",

author = "Kim, {Yeon Soo} and Hofman, {G. L.} and Cheon, {J. S.} and Robinson, {A. B.} and Wachs, {D. M.}",

note = "Funding Information: The authors would like to thank Mrs. C. Clark, G. Moore, and J. Jue for the fabrication of the plates used in this work. The operations staff at ATR is also acknowledged for the irradiation tests. The physics data available by Dr. G. Chang and Ms. M. Lillo are also appreciated. One of the authors (Y.S. Kim) thanks Mr. Y.S. Choo of KAERI for the measurement of pore sizes used in Fig. 6 and Ms. S.H. Kim for the review of the manuscript. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Global Threat Reduction (NA-21), National Nuclear Security Administration, under Contract No. DE-AC-02-06CH11357 between UChicago Argonne, LLC and the Department of Energy. ",

year = "2013",

doi = "10.1016/j.jnucmat.2013.01.346",

language = "English",

volume = "437",

pages = "37--46",

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T1 - Fission induced swelling and creep of U-Mo alloy fuel

AU - Kim, Yeon Soo

AU - Hofman, G. L.

AU - Cheon, J. S.

AU - Robinson, A. B.

AU - Wachs, D. M.

N1 - Funding Information: The authors would like to thank Mrs. C. Clark, G. Moore, and J. Jue for the fabrication of the plates used in this work. The operations staff at ATR is also acknowledged for the irradiation tests. The physics data available by Dr. G. Chang and Ms. M. Lillo are also appreciated. One of the authors (Y.S. Kim) thanks Mr. Y.S. Choo of KAERI for the measurement of pore sizes used in Fig. 6 and Ms. S.H. Kim for the review of the manuscript. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Global Threat Reduction (NA-21), National Nuclear Security Administration, under Contract No. DE-AC-02-06CH11357 between UChicago Argonne, LLC and the Department of Energy.

PY - 2013

Y1 - 2013

N2 - Tapering of U-Mo alloy fuel at the end of plates is attributed to lateral mass transfer by fission induced creep, by which fuel mass is relocated away from the fuel end region where fission product induced fuel swelling is in fact the highest. This mechanism permits U-Mo fuel to achieve high burnup by effectively relieving stresses at the fuel end region, where peak stresses are otherwise expected because peak fission product induced fuel swelling occurs there. ABAQUS FEA was employed to examine whether the observed phenomenon can be simulated using physical-mechanical data available in the literature. The simulation results obtained for several plates with different fuel fabrication and loading scheme showed that the measured data were able to be simulated with a reasonable creep rate coefficient. The obtained creep rate constant lies between values for pure uranium and MOX, and is greater than all other ceramic uranium fuels.

AB - Tapering of U-Mo alloy fuel at the end of plates is attributed to lateral mass transfer by fission induced creep, by which fuel mass is relocated away from the fuel end region where fission product induced fuel swelling is in fact the highest. This mechanism permits U-Mo fuel to achieve high burnup by effectively relieving stresses at the fuel end region, where peak stresses are otherwise expected because peak fission product induced fuel swelling occurs there. ABAQUS FEA was employed to examine whether the observed phenomenon can be simulated using physical-mechanical data available in the literature. The simulation results obtained for several plates with different fuel fabrication and loading scheme showed that the measured data were able to be simulated with a reasonable creep rate coefficient. The obtained creep rate constant lies between values for pure uranium and MOX, and is greater than all other ceramic uranium fuels.

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Fission induced swelling and creep of U-Mo alloy fuel

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