| About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2023 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
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| Symposium
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Microstructural, Mechanical and Chemical Behavior of Solid Nuclear Fuel and Fuel-cladding Interface
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| Presentation Title |
Fracturing and Fragmentation of Cr2O3-doped UO2 Pellets with Controlled Microstructure Under Prototypic LOCA and RIA Thermal Transients |
| Author(s) |
Dong Zhao, Kun Yang, Andre Broussard, Heng Ban, Jie Lian |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Dong Zhao |
| Abstract Scope |
The loss of coolant accident (LOCA) and reactivity-initiated accident (RIA) events limit the reactor performance and induce the failure of fuel systems. In this talk, monolithic and chromia-doped UO2 fuels with controlled grain sizes are synthesized by spark plasma sintering and used as model systems to test their fragmentation behavior under transient conditions. To simulate the LOCA, different ramping rates (5 to 15 ℃/s) at two target temperatures (1000 ℃ and 1500 ℃) have been performed to investigate the threshold heating rate and terminal temperatures for the pellets with different grain sizes and compositions. In addition, ultrafast thermal ramping (up to 700 ℃/s) has been created to probe the fragmentation behavior of UO2 pellets under extreme temperature ramping encountered during RIA tests. Their fragmentation behaviors under prototypical LOCA and RIA induced thermal transients are correlated with their thermal-mechanical properties as functions of microstructure and fuel compositions. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: |
| Keywords |
Ceramics, Nuclear Materials, Other |