A practical guide to characterizing irradiated nuclear fuels using FIB tomography

Casey McKinney; Charlyne Smith; Grant Helmreich; Tyler Gerczak; Assel Aitkaliyeva

doi:10.1016/j.micron.2022.103290

A practical guide to characterizing irradiated nuclear fuels using FIB tomography

Casey McKinney, Charlyne Smith, Grant Helmreich, Tyler Gerczak, Assel Aitkaliyeva

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Focused ion beam (FIB) tomography with combined electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) is a technique capable of statistically characterizing the microstructure and spatial compositional variation of nuclear fuel in three-dimensions (3D). The 3D visualization from FIB tomography provides a comprehensive picture of the interconnected microstructural and compositional features that can impact fuel performance. While these features are often characterized with surface examination, the complexity and relationship of fission products and grain boundary networks may not fully be captured by these 2D methods. This work presents a practical guide to FIB tomography that is tailored to nuclear fuel characterization. The steps used to collect and process the data are provided along with the scripts used to process the data. Additionally, suggestions for future characterization efforts utilizing this approach are given.

Original language	English
Article number	103290
Journal	Micron
Volume	158
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.micron.2022.103290
State	Published - Jul 2022

Funding

This work was 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 experiment.

Funders	Funder number
U.S. Department of Energy	DE-AC07-051D14517
Office of Nuclear Energy

Keywords

Data reconstruction
FIB tomography
Fuel characterization

Access to Document

10.1016/j.micron.2022.103290

Cite this

@article{66909acc808346ddb3be87fb6ee3cfa0,

title = "A practical guide to characterizing irradiated nuclear fuels using FIB tomography",

abstract = "Focused ion beam (FIB) tomography with combined electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) is a technique capable of statistically characterizing the microstructure and spatial compositional variation of nuclear fuel in three-dimensions (3D). The 3D visualization from FIB tomography provides a comprehensive picture of the interconnected microstructural and compositional features that can impact fuel performance. While these features are often characterized with surface examination, the complexity and relationship of fission products and grain boundary networks may not fully be captured by these 2D methods. This work presents a practical guide to FIB tomography that is tailored to nuclear fuel characterization. The steps used to collect and process the data are provided along with the scripts used to process the data. Additionally, suggestions for future characterization efforts utilizing this approach are given.",

keywords = "Data reconstruction, FIB tomography, Fuel characterization",

author = "Casey McKinney and Charlyne Smith and Grant Helmreich and Tyler Gerczak and Assel Aitkaliyeva",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022 Elsevier Ltd",

year = "2022",

month = jul,

doi = "10.1016/j.micron.2022.103290",

language = "English",

volume = "158",

journal = "Micron",

issn = "0968-4328",

publisher = "Elsevier",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - A practical guide to characterizing irradiated nuclear fuels using FIB tomography

AU - McKinney, Casey

AU - Smith, Charlyne

AU - Helmreich, Grant

AU - Gerczak, Tyler

AU - Aitkaliyeva, Assel

PY - 2022/7

Y1 - 2022/7

N2 - Focused ion beam (FIB) tomography with combined electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) is a technique capable of statistically characterizing the microstructure and spatial compositional variation of nuclear fuel in three-dimensions (3D). The 3D visualization from FIB tomography provides a comprehensive picture of the interconnected microstructural and compositional features that can impact fuel performance. While these features are often characterized with surface examination, the complexity and relationship of fission products and grain boundary networks may not fully be captured by these 2D methods. This work presents a practical guide to FIB tomography that is tailored to nuclear fuel characterization. The steps used to collect and process the data are provided along with the scripts used to process the data. Additionally, suggestions for future characterization efforts utilizing this approach are given.

AB - Focused ion beam (FIB) tomography with combined electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) is a technique capable of statistically characterizing the microstructure and spatial compositional variation of nuclear fuel in three-dimensions (3D). The 3D visualization from FIB tomography provides a comprehensive picture of the interconnected microstructural and compositional features that can impact fuel performance. While these features are often characterized with surface examination, the complexity and relationship of fission products and grain boundary networks may not fully be captured by these 2D methods. This work presents a practical guide to FIB tomography that is tailored to nuclear fuel characterization. The steps used to collect and process the data are provided along with the scripts used to process the data. Additionally, suggestions for future characterization efforts utilizing this approach are given.

KW - Data reconstruction

KW - FIB tomography

KW - Fuel characterization

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85128988483&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.micron.2022.103290

DO - 10.1016/j.micron.2022.103290

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85128988483

SN - 0968-4328

VL - 158

JO - Micron

JF - Micron

M1 - 103290

ER -

A practical guide to characterizing irradiated nuclear fuels using FIB tomography

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this