Abstract
The microstructure investigations on a high-energy Xe-implanted U3Si2 pellet were performed. The promising accident tolerant fuel (ATF) candidate, U3Si2, was irradiated by 84 MeV Xe ions at 600 °C at Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System (ATLAS). The characterizations of the Xe implanted sample were conducted using advanced transmission electron microscopy (TEM) techniques. An oxidation layer was observed on the sample surface after irradiation under the ∼10-5 Pa vacuum. The study on the oxidation layer not only unveils the readily oxidation behavior of U3Si2 under high-temperature irradiation conditions, but also develops an understanding of its oxidation mechanism. Intragranular Xe bubbles with bimodal size distribution were observed within the Xe deposition region of the sample induced by 84 MeV Xe ion implantation. At the irradiation temperature of 600 °C, the gaseous swelling strain contributed by intragranular bubbles was found to be insignificant, indicating an acceptable fission gas behavior of U3Si2 as a light water reactor (LWR) fuel operating at such a temperature.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 314-322 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Journal of Nuclear Materials |
| Volume | 503 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 2018 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
This work was funded by the Accident Tolerant Fuel High-Impact Problems (ATF HIP) of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program . The authors would also like to acknowledge the help of Matthew Hendricks on the ATLAS irradiation. This research used resources of Argonne National Laboratory's ATLAS facility, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility. The efforts involving Argonne National Laboratory were sponsored under Contract no. DE-AC02-06CH11357 between UChicago Argonne , LLC and the U.S. Department of Energy . 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. The isotope(s) used in this research were supplied by the United States Department of Energy Office of Science by the Isotope Program in the Office of Nuclear Physics. Fabrication of the samples used in this work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy. Fabrication was part of a collaboration led by Westinghouse Electric Company comprising several national laboratories, vendors, and universities awarded in response to the DE-FOA-0001063 funding opportunity. The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of the support staff associated with the Fuels Applied Science Building at Idaho National Laboratory specifically Rita Hoggan for preparing samples for ion irradiation.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| ATF HIP | |
| Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation | |
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| Office of Nuclear Energy | DE-AC07-051D14517 |
Keywords
- Accident tolerant fuel
- Fission gas behavior
- Ion irradiation
- Light water reactor (LWR)
- Microstructure characterization
- USi