Abstract:

In this work, we developed a simple and easily reproducible method to measure the interconnectivity of fission gas pore phases in irradiated nuclear fuels. The formation, growth and interconnection of fission gas pores contribute to the release of fission gases from the fuel meat to the fuel cladding resulting in swelling, delamination, pillowing and potential failure. The developed interconnectivity measurement tool can be used to investigate the degree of the interconnectivity of fission gas pores irradiated U–Mo fuels solely using backscattered electron micrographs. The calculated fission gas pore interconnectivity is related to the fission density and fission gas pore size. Between 4.45 × 10e21 and 6.23 × 10e21 fissions cm^−3 inclusive, the rate of increase in the porosity with fission density is almost 4 × the rate of fission gas pore interconnectivity. This evidence reveals that as the fission gas pores form and grow, they do not become interconnected immediately. These findings can help inform computational models to predict fuel behavior in reactor environments.

Links:

Citation:

C. A. Smith, Y. Cui, B. D. Miler, D. D. Keiser, A. Zare and A. Aitkaliyeva, "New approach for measuring interconnectivity of fission gas pores in nuclear fuels from 2D micrographs," in Journal of Materials Science.  2020.

@Article{smith2020micrographs,
Title = {New approach for measuring interconnectivity of fission gas pores in nuclear fuels from 2D micrographs}, 
Author = {Charlyne A. Smith and Yiming Cui and Brandon D. Miler and Dennis D. Keiser and Alina Zare and Assel Aitkaliyeva},  
Journal = {Journal of Materials Science},   
Year = {2020},  
}