Abstract
Cladding thermal conductivity is an important physical property in assessing the performance of silicon carbide (SiC)-cladded fuels for nuclear reactors. However, there is a significant lack of reliable data, particularly for irradiated materials, because the geometry complicates the measurement. This study investigates the thermal diffusivity of coupons with a curvature, machined from SiC fiber–reinforced SiC matrix composite tubes, with and without neutron irradiation under light water reactor–relevant temperature and dose conditions. The tested materials included full composite and duplex SiC composite tubes. The measurements were conducted using a modern flash diffusivity apparatus. The analyzed area on the specimen during diffusivity testing was reduced for improved measurement accuracy due to sample curvature. Post-irradiation measurements showed that the effects of neutron irradiation on thermal conductivity (e.g. thermal defect resistivity) are different between SiC composite plates versus tubes. The difference was explained by higher matrix density of the tube than the plate. This study provides reliable thermal properties of prototypic SiC composite tubes useful for fuel performance modeling of SiC-based cladding.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 153217 |
| Journal | Journal of Nuclear Materials |
| Volume | 557 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 15 2021 |
Funding
This study was supported by the US Department Energy (DOE), Office of Nuclear Energy, for the Advanced Fuels Campaign of the Nuclear Technology R&D program and the Westinghouse Electric Corporation/General Atomics FOA program under contact DE-AC05-00OR22725 with ORNL, managed by UT Battelle, LLC. The irradiation experiments were also supported by the Office of Nuclear Energy under DOE Idaho Operations Office Contract DE-AC07-051D14517 as part of a Nuclear Science User Facilities experiment. A portion of this research used resources at the High Flux Isotope Reactor, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by ORNL. Stephanie Curlin at ORNL conducted the thermal diffusivity tests. The authors wish to thank Artem Trofimov, Peter Mouche, and Deborah Counce at ORNL for reviewing and editing this manuscript. WJK and DK acknowledge a support from the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. 2017M2A8A4017642 ). 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). This study was supported by the US Department Energy (DOE), Office of Nuclear Energy, for the Advanced Fuels Campaign of the Nuclear Technology R&D program and the Westinghouse Electric Corporation/General Atomics FOA program under contact DE-AC05-00OR22725 with ORNL, managed by UT Battelle, LLC. The irradiation experiments were also supported by the Office of Nuclear Energy under DOE Idaho Operations Office Contract DE-AC07-051D14517 as part of a Nuclear Science User Facilities experiment. A portion of this research used resources at the High Flux Isotope Reactor, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by ORNL. Stephanie Curlin at ORNL conducted the thermal diffusivity tests. The authors wish to thank Artem Trofimov, Peter Mouche, and Deborah Counce at ORNL for reviewing and editing this manuscript. WJK and DK acknowledge a support from the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. 2017M2A8A4017642).
Keywords
- Cladding
- Irradiation
- SiC
- Thermal properties