TY - JOUR
T1 - Manufacturing porous U10Zr fuels with controlled porosities by SPS and thermal properties
AU - Zhao, Dong
AU - Benson, Michael T.
AU - Yao, Tiankai
AU - Yang, Kun
AU - Di Lemma, Fidelma G.
AU - Di Lemma, FidelmaGiulia
AU - Gong, Bowen
AU - Lian, Jie
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy under DOE Idaho Operations Office Contract DE-AC07–05ID14517, through Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) and DOE ARPA-E under award # 18/CJ000/15/05. Accordingly, the U.S. Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022
PY - 2023/2
Y1 - 2023/2
N2 - To accommodate the swelling of metallic fuels induced by the fission gas release for a sodium-free fuel option, advanced U-10Zr fuels with controlled porosities were designed and demonstrated by spark plasma sintering (SPS). U-10Zr fuel pellets with manufactured porosities varying from 35% up to fully dense fuel pellets have been fabricated by controlling mechanical attrition of the starting uranium powders, sintering temperature, pressure, and duration, and the correlation among the microstructure control – porosity – sintering conditions has been established. To further mimick the pore structure in irradiated fuels, different pore formers (NaCl and NH4HCO3) were used to control the pore size and distribution. Microstructure characterization indicates a lamellar reaction zone of enriched Zr and U composed of alpha Zr with 2 at% U and distorted alpha U with 13 at% of Zr, respectively, differing from the arc-melted U-10Zr as a result of rapid consolidation of SPS at lower temperatures and short durations. The thermal conductivity of U10Zr with different porosities were also measured. This work demonstrates the success in manufacturing new metallic fuel forms with controlled porosities and pore distribution, which can be used as model systems to investigate the thermal transfer behavior of metallic fuels in the reactor.
AB - To accommodate the swelling of metallic fuels induced by the fission gas release for a sodium-free fuel option, advanced U-10Zr fuels with controlled porosities were designed and demonstrated by spark plasma sintering (SPS). U-10Zr fuel pellets with manufactured porosities varying from 35% up to fully dense fuel pellets have been fabricated by controlling mechanical attrition of the starting uranium powders, sintering temperature, pressure, and duration, and the correlation among the microstructure control – porosity – sintering conditions has been established. To further mimick the pore structure in irradiated fuels, different pore formers (NaCl and NH4HCO3) were used to control the pore size and distribution. Microstructure characterization indicates a lamellar reaction zone of enriched Zr and U composed of alpha Zr with 2 at% U and distorted alpha U with 13 at% of Zr, respectively, differing from the arc-melted U-10Zr as a result of rapid consolidation of SPS at lower temperatures and short durations. The thermal conductivity of U10Zr with different porosities were also measured. This work demonstrates the success in manufacturing new metallic fuel forms with controlled porosities and pore distribution, which can be used as model systems to investigate the thermal transfer behavior of metallic fuels in the reactor.
KW - Sodium free design
KW - SPS
KW - U10Zr metallic fuel
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85144606870&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/d90688af-de3b-3976-ba5d-5605d7efcd22/
U2 - 10.1016/j.jnucmat.2022.154208
DO - 10.1016/j.jnucmat.2022.154208
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85144606870
SN - 0022-3115
VL - 574
JO - Journal of Nuclear Materials
JF - Journal of Nuclear Materials
M1 - 154208
ER -