| About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2023 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Ceramic Materials for Nuclear Energy Research and Applications
|
| Presentation Title |
Revealing The Microstructure and Irradiation Effects on UO2 Fracture via Coupled Phase-field and MD Simulations Approach |
| Author(s) |
Merve Gencturk, Abdurrahman Ozturk, David Andersson, Mohammed Abdoelatef, Larry K. Aagesen, Wen Jiang, Michael William Donald Cooper, Karim Ahmed |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Merve Gencturk |
| Abstract Scope |
Understanding the initiation and evolution of cracks is essential to enhancing the reliability of nuclear materials. Since the continuum approach does not explicitly consider the material's microstructure, this model type is not able to account directly for either microstructure or irradiation effects. Therefore, we utilize a coupled molecular dynamics and phase-field simulations to investigate the effects of point and extended defects on the fracture properties in UO2, bridging the scales from atoms to continuum. MD simulations are utilized to analyze Young's modulus, Poisson ratio, and the critical energy release rate as a function of point and extended defect densities. Informed from atomistic MD simulations, phase-field simulations are conducted to investigate the irradiation and microstructure effects at the mesoscale. It was demonstrated that dislocations and bubbles have the most pronounced effect on fracture properties. The coupled simulations also reveal the size effect in UO2 fracture. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: |
| Keywords |
Nuclear Materials, Computational Materials Science & Engineering, |