TY - JOUR
T1 - Contributions to the mechanistic understanding of the microstructural evolution in irradiated U-Mo dispersion fuel
AU - Salvato, Daniele
AU - Smith, Charlyne A.
AU - Pavlov, Tsvetoslav Rumenov
AU - Hanson, William A.
AU - Bawane, Kaustubh K.
AU - Bachhav, Mukesh N.
AU - Miller, Brandon D.
AU - Trowbridge, Tammy L.
AU - Gan, Jian
AU - Giglio, Jeffrey
AU - Winston, Alexander J.
AU - Henley, Jody L.
AU - Robinson, Adam B.
AU - Keiser, Dennis D.
AU - Glagolenko, Irina Y.
AU - Ye, B.
AU - Mei, Z. G.
AU - Jamison, Laura M.
AU - Hofman, Gerard L.
AU - Yacout, Abdellatif M.
AU - Van den Berghe, Sven
AU - Leenaers, Ann
N1 - Score=10
Funding Information:
This work is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), under DOE Idaho Operations Office Contract DE-AC07-05ID14517 and by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Contract No. 22P1066-010FP. Accordingly, the U.S. Government retains a nonexclusive, royalty-free license to publish or reproduce the published form of this contribution, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes. The authors would like to acknowledge the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) for providing the U-7Mo particles for this experiment, and Framatome-CERCA for fabricating the fuel plates. The authors would also like to acknowledge the staff, engineers, and operators of the INL ATR, MFC HFEF, and IMCL for their efforts in the irradiation, handling, preparation, and transfer of the specimens used in this work. Argonne National Laboratory's work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Office of Material Management and Minimization (NA-23) Reactor Conversion Program. The material is also based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, under Contract DE-AC02-06CH11357.
Funding Information:
This work is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) , under DOE Idaho Operations Office Contract DE-AC07-05ID14517 and by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Contract No. 22P1066-010FP . Accordingly, the U.S. Government retains a nonexclusive, royalty-free license to publish or reproduce the published form of this contribution, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes. The authors would like to acknowledge the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) for providing the U-7Mo particles for this experiment, and Framatome-CERCA for fabricating the fuel plates. The authors would also like to acknowledge the staff, engineers, and operators of the INL ATR, MFC HFEF, and IMCL for their efforts in the irradiation, handling, preparation, and transfer of the specimens used in this work. Argonne National Laboratory's work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Office of Material Management and Minimization (NA-23) Reactor Conversion Program. The material is also based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science , under Contract DE-AC02-06CH11357 .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2024/1
Y1 - 2024/1
N2 - Advanced microstructural characterization techniques, such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and scanning transmission electron microscopy - energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (STEM-EDS), were used to interpret the fuel microstructure evolution and fission products behavior in U-Mo dispersion fuel irradiated in the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) as part of the European Mini-Plate Irradiation Experiment (EMPIrE) test. The larger as-fabricated fuel grain size achieved by heat-treating the U-Mo powder resulted in slower high burnup structure (HBS) development and reduced fission gas porosity. Slower HBS kinetics was observed at the fuel kernels’ periphery, which contained smaller and less fission gas bubbles at all fission densities (FDs) investigated and was attributed to a locally reduced damage density and fission products concentration, as corroborated with Monte Carlo simulations. The non-refined grains at the fuel kernel periphery hosted a perfectly ordered fission Gas Bubble Superlattice (GBS) up to 6.3 × 1021 fissions/cm3. Nano-scale STEM-EDS analysis presented in this study provided useful information on the GBS characteristic morphology and evolution in U-Mo fuel. The concentration of fission gas in the GBS progressively increased with FD, pointing to an evolution of the nanobubble pressure status with irradiation. A possible connection between the GBS collapse and HBS onset is proposed for which there exists a threshold in the misorientation of the refined sub-grains above which the GBS stability during irradiation is no longer preserved, resulting in the GBS collapse.
AB - Advanced microstructural characterization techniques, such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and scanning transmission electron microscopy - energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (STEM-EDS), were used to interpret the fuel microstructure evolution and fission products behavior in U-Mo dispersion fuel irradiated in the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) as part of the European Mini-Plate Irradiation Experiment (EMPIrE) test. The larger as-fabricated fuel grain size achieved by heat-treating the U-Mo powder resulted in slower high burnup structure (HBS) development and reduced fission gas porosity. Slower HBS kinetics was observed at the fuel kernels’ periphery, which contained smaller and less fission gas bubbles at all fission densities (FDs) investigated and was attributed to a locally reduced damage density and fission products concentration, as corroborated with Monte Carlo simulations. The non-refined grains at the fuel kernel periphery hosted a perfectly ordered fission Gas Bubble Superlattice (GBS) up to 6.3 × 1021 fissions/cm3. Nano-scale STEM-EDS analysis presented in this study provided useful information on the GBS characteristic morphology and evolution in U-Mo fuel. The concentration of fission gas in the GBS progressively increased with FD, pointing to an evolution of the nanobubble pressure status with irradiation. A possible connection between the GBS collapse and HBS onset is proposed for which there exists a threshold in the misorientation of the refined sub-grains above which the GBS stability during irradiation is no longer preserved, resulting in the GBS collapse.
KW - Fission gas behavior
KW - Gas bubble superlattice
KW - Grain refinement
KW - High burnup structure
KW - High-performance research reactors
KW - U-Mo
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85175193801&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jnucmat.2023.154789
DO - 10.1016/j.jnucmat.2023.154789
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85175193801
SN - 0022-3115
VL - 588
JO - Journal of Nuclear Materials
JF - Journal of Nuclear Materials
M1 - 154789
ER -