| About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2025 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Additive Manufacturing and Alloy Design: Bridging Fundamental Physical Metallurgy, Advanced Characterization Techniques, and Integrated Computational Materials Engineering for Advanced Materials
|
| Presentation Title |
Selective Powder Deposition of Refractory Zirconium Alloys: Challenges and Opportunities |
| Author(s) |
Phylis Makurunje, Jack Callaghan |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Phylis Makurunje |
| Abstract Scope |
The complex fuel configurations required for nuclear thermal reactors make additive-manufacturing a fabrication technology of choice for architectures with flow channels that facilitate effective heat exchange and pressure thresholds. In the present work, additive manufacturing of zirconium-based alloy typically used for encapsulation matrices was performed. To enhance the performance of zirconium, vanadium and niobium additions were envisaged to improve the thermophysical and thermomechanical properties of the fuel. The powder deposition additive manufacturing technique was used to prepare the zirconium alloy models. Microstructural analyses were performed across temperature profiles. Shrinkage and density evolution data were obtained and explained the microstructures obtained. Thermal conductivity studies were performed on a laser flash analyser while thermal expansion studies were performed on a variable temperature X-Ray diffractometer up to 500 °C. Findings informed the thermo-mechanical studies for analysing the structural integrity of the fuel at varying temperatures. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: |
| Keywords |
Additive Manufacturing, Powder Materials, High-Temperature Materials |