Abstract
The use of coatings on SiC/SiC fuel cladding offers the promise of decreased aqueous dissolution and greater hermiticity, while realizing the promise of SiC/SiC as a fuel-cladding material. In this work, SiC/SiC and CVD-SiC samples with candidate coatings were irradiated to a neutron fluence of 4.8 x 1020 n/cm2 >0.1 MeV at 290-340°C in an inert environment to examine their behavior under irradiation. Samples coated with Cr or a multilayered Cr-CrN coating exhibited significant cracking. Samples coated with CrN showed very little cracking, and TiN coated specimens did not crack at all. XRD measurements showed lattice expansion of 0.5-0.6% in the SiC substrates, but no significant lattice expansion in the coatings. TEM investigation showed cavity swelling in the Cr coatings, possibly a result of impurities introduced during the coating process, and the likely cause of the observed cracking. The low crack density observed on the TiN and CrN coatings indicate either good bond strength, or very good stress relaxation due to irradiation creep.
| Original language | English |
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| Pages | 428-433 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| State | Published - 2019 |
| Event | 19th International Conference on Environmental Degradation of Materials in Nuclear Power Systems - Water Reactors, EnvDeg 2019 - Boston, United States Duration: Aug 18 2019 → Aug 22 2019 |
Conference
| Conference | 19th International Conference on Environmental Degradation of Materials in Nuclear Power Systems - Water Reactors, EnvDeg 2019 |
|---|---|
| Country/Territory | United States |
| City | Boston |
| Period | 08/18/19 → 08/22/19 |
Funding
Notice: This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US 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 US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan). The authors are grateful for the assistance of Travis Dixon, Patricia Tedder, and Josh Schmidlin. This work was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy, Advanced Fuel Campaign.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Advanced Fuel Campaign | |
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| Office of Nuclear Energy |