| Abstract Scope |
Contrasting with a solid fuel design, the annular metallic fuel (U-10Zr, wt%) shows ultra-high burnup potential, better fuel-cladding chemical interaction performance, and no need for sodium bonding. During irradiation of U-10Zr, an interconnected porosity allows fission gas to escape to the plenum. Here, annular U-10Zr fuel pellets with controlled porosity and pore structure was fabricated by spark-plasma-sintering (SPS) with a special graphite die design. To mimic the irradiated structure for metallic fuel, pressure-less die design and sacrificed pore formers were used to fabricate the bi-model pore structure fuel, which has interconnected large-sized (20~30 μm) pores embedded with micron-sized fine pores. The homogenous microstructure is achieved by controlling the current flow during the sintering process. The results not only show the capabilities of SPS for advanced fuel fabrication, but can also be used to investigate the properties of irradiated metallic fuel structure with a thermal gradient, simulating the nuclear reactor environment. |