| About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
MS&T24: Materials Science & Technology
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| Symposium
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Solid-State Transformations Under Complex Thermal Conditions
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| Presentation Title |
In-Situ Heating in Transmission Electron Microscopy to Characterize Nuclear Fuel |
| Author(s) |
Fidelma Di Lemma, Daniele Salvato, Kourtney Wright, Laura Hawkins, Kaustubh Bawane, Tiankai Yao, Luca Capriotti, Sriram Vijayan |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Fidelma Di Lemma |
| Abstract Scope |
During nuclear reactor operations the fuel experiences a harsh environment, due to intense radiation, material interaction and complex thermal conditions. Traditional studies of fuel performance have focused on post-irradiation examinations, which characterize the fuel only after reactor shutdown. Such postmortem characterization, usually performed at room temperature, limits our ability to understand the dynamics of phase transition and fuel microstructural evolution. Improvements in understanding can provide important input to material performance and can be utilized to improve fuel fabrication processes.
Our recent studies have utilized in-situ transmission electron microscopy to characterize fuel in prototypical thermal reactor conditions. In-situ heating devices have been used to test fuel under steady state and under prototypical reactor thermal gradients. This talk will present new results focusing on microstructural changes in fuel such as grain structure evolution, phase reversion and elemental diffusion and interaction. |