| About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2025 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Seaborg Institutes: Emerging Topics in Actinide Sciences
|
| Presentation Title |
Understanding Radiation Effects on the Thermodynamic Behavior of Aged Pu Alloys |
| Author(s) |
Najeb M. Abdul-Jabbar, Shane Mann, Kristen Pace, Sarah Hernandez, David Wayne, Jeremy Mitchell |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Kristen Pace |
| Abstract Scope |
Crystallographic defects and helium bubble ingrowth induced by radiation damage are key topics for understanding materials phenomena in aged plutonium and its associated alloys. In this work, quantifiable variations in specific heat capacity and heat flow were observed in alloys that have accumulated years of radiation damage that are not observed in nominally defect-free specimens. This is driven by thermal recovery at sub solidus temperature regimes, and moreover, exothermic events are observed during melting, suggestive of the collapse of helium bubbles entrapped in bulk Pu metal. Integration of these results offers insights on relationships between material defects and Pu thermodynamics by showing that the extent of radiation damage is an important driving factor in the thermophysical evolution of Pu. The work also reveals an alternative pathway to study Pu defects via thermal analysis that can be coupled with other techniques like diffraction, microscopy, and x-ray/neutron scattering to probe Pu structure. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: |