Assessment of ceramic coatings for metal fuel melting crucible
- Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Yuseong, Daejeon 305-600 (Korea, Republic of)
The objective of this study is to develop a coating method and material for crucibles to prevent material interactions with the U-Zr/U-TRU-Zr fuels during the manufacturing of SFR fuels. Refractory coatings were applied to niobium substrates by vacuum plasma-spray coating method. Melt dipping tests conducted were the coated rods lowered into the fuel melt at 1600 C. degrees, and withdrawn and cooled outside the crucible in the inert atmosphere of the induction furnace. Melt dipping tests of the coated Nb rods indicated that plasma-sprayed Y{sub 2}O{sub 3} coating doesn't form significant reaction layer between fuel melt and coating layer. Melt dipping tests of the coated Nb rods showed that TiC, TaC, and Y{sub 2}O{sub 3} coatings exhibited the promising performance among other ceramic coatings. These materials could be promising candidate materials for the reusable melt crucible of metal fuel for SFR. In addition, in order to develop the vacuum plasma-spray coating method for re-usable crucible of metal fuel slugs to be overcome the issue of thermal expansion mismatch between coating material and crucible, various combinations of coating conditions were investigated to find the bonding effect on the substrate in pursuit of more effective ways to withstand the thermal stresses. It is observed that most coating methods maintained sound coating state in U-Zr melt. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 22267982
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: GLOBAL 2013: International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference - Nuclear Energy at a Crossroads, Salt Lake City, UT (United States), 29 Sep - 3 Oct 2013; Other Information: Country of input: France; 4 refs.; Related Information: In: Proceedings of GLOBAL 2013: International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference - Nuclear Energy at a Crossroads| 1633 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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