| About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2021 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Composite Materials for Nuclear Applications
|
| Presentation Title |
Conformal Tungsten Coatings for Cermet Nuclear Fuel Elements |
| Author(s) |
Jonathan A. Johnson, Ryan Wilkerson, Stephen DiPietro, Scott O'Dell, Gregory Thompson |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Jonathan A. Johnson |
| Abstract Scope |
Nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) is being explored for deep space applications as it can reduce total trip time for interstellar travel. One of the concerns for NTP nuclear fuels is the particle-to-particle contact in the cermet creating ‘hot spots’ and promoting additional fissile fuel loss. A mitigation strategy to eliminating these contact points is to provide conformal coatings over the individual fuel particles to promote separation in the final cermet. In this presentation, sputtering is utilized to provide tungsten coatings onto surrogate fuels. The coatings created a 'powdery' morphology that is contributed to repeated coating-to-coating adhesion and subsequent fracture. The coated powders were sintered to determine the coatings effectiveness in promoting particle isolation in the microstructure of the cermet. The use of multiple PVD sputtering targets is also addressed in creating secondary phases that can serve as hydrogen traps. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: |