TY - JOUR
T1 - Micro X-ray computed tomography examination of mini plate fuel with hot isostatic pressed aluminum cladding
AU - Chuirazzi, William
AU - Cordes, Nikolaus L.
AU - Jue, Jan Fong
AU - Johnson, Maxine
AU - Cole, James
AU - Giglio, Jeffrey
N1 - Funding Information:
This submitted manuscript was authored by a contractor of the U.S. Government under DOE Contract No. DE-AC07–05ID14517. 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, world- wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes. The funding for this work was provided by the USHPRR Project, Office of Material Management and Minimization National Nuclear Security Administration from the U.S. Department of Energy under DOE-NE Idaho Operations Office Contract DE-AC07- 05ID14517 . Portions of the image analysis and manuscript writing were supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy under DOE Idaho Operations Office Contract DE-AC07- 051D14517 as part of a Nuclear Science User Facilities project. Authors would like to acknowledge the Irradiated Materials Characterization Laboratory (IMCL) at the Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) at Idaho National Laboratory for their effort in handling, preparing, and transferring of the specimens used in this work. The authors also thank Dr. David Frazer and Mr. Alex Winston for discussions on the observed dislocations.
Funding Information:
This submitted manuscript was authored by a contractor of the U.S. Government under DOE Contract No. DE-AC07–05ID14517. 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, world- wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes. The funding for this work was provided by the USHPRR Project, Office of Material Management and Minimization National Nuclear Security Administration from the U.S. Department of Energy under DOE-NE Idaho Operations Office Contract DE-AC07- 05ID14517. Portions of the image analysis and manuscript writing were supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy under DOE Idaho Operations Office Contract DE-AC07- 051D14517 as part of a Nuclear Science User Facilities project. Authors would like to acknowledge the Irradiated Materials Characterization Laboratory (IMCL) at the Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) at Idaho National Laboratory for their effort in handling, preparing, and transferring of the specimens used in this work. The authors also thank Dr. David Frazer and Mr. Alex Winston for discussions on the observed dislocations. The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2023/12
Y1 - 2023/12
N2 - In order to minimize proliferation risks and improve security of nuclear material, the United States high performance research and test reactors (USHPRR) program is tasked with converting nuclear reactors that are fueled with highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuels to operate with low-enriched uranium (LEU) nuclear fuels. One favorable LEU fuel configuration is plate fuel with a metallic uranium-molybdenum foil clad within an aluminum alloy (AA 6061). In this fuel, the aluminum cladding is bonded with a hot isostatic pressing (HIP) method to seal the cladding around the fuel meat. However, the HIP process parameters influence the cladding performance, as a defective or incomplete bond can cause a pathway for corrosion. Micro X-ray computed tomography (XCT), a nondestructive technique that provides volumetric imaging, can be applied to inspect fuel plate cladding at the engineering scale. In this work, XCT methodology was developed and successfully utilized to not only observe the bond line of unirradiated mini fuel plates, but to also identify subsurface abnormalities in the plates’ cladding. In future work, this technique could be applied to fuel plates, pre- and post-irradiation, to quantify irradiation effects on cladding defects and bond line integrity.
AB - In order to minimize proliferation risks and improve security of nuclear material, the United States high performance research and test reactors (USHPRR) program is tasked with converting nuclear reactors that are fueled with highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuels to operate with low-enriched uranium (LEU) nuclear fuels. One favorable LEU fuel configuration is plate fuel with a metallic uranium-molybdenum foil clad within an aluminum alloy (AA 6061). In this fuel, the aluminum cladding is bonded with a hot isostatic pressing (HIP) method to seal the cladding around the fuel meat. However, the HIP process parameters influence the cladding performance, as a defective or incomplete bond can cause a pathway for corrosion. Micro X-ray computed tomography (XCT), a nondestructive technique that provides volumetric imaging, can be applied to inspect fuel plate cladding at the engineering scale. In this work, XCT methodology was developed and successfully utilized to not only observe the bond line of unirradiated mini fuel plates, but to also identify subsurface abnormalities in the plates’ cladding. In future work, this technique could be applied to fuel plates, pre- and post-irradiation, to quantify irradiation effects on cladding defects and bond line integrity.
KW - Plate Fuel
KW - USHPRR
KW - X-ray Computed Tomography, Nondestructive Examination
KW - X-ray radiography
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85174522922
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/034bbf55-651b-3463-a000-49d109179633/
U2 - 10.1016/j.mtcomm.2023.107345
DO - 10.1016/j.mtcomm.2023.107345
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85174522922
SN - 2352-4928
VL - 37
JO - Materials Today Communications
JF - Materials Today Communications
M1 - 107345
ER -