Neutron irradiated uranium silicides studied by neutron diffraction and Rietveld analysis

Conference · Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 EST 1990

OSTI ID:6287864

Birtcher, R C; Mueller, M H; Richardson, Jr, J W

The irradiation behavior of high-density uranium silicides has been a matter of interest to the nuclear industry for use in high power or low enrichment applications. Transmission electron microscopy studies have found that heavy ion bombardment renders U{sub 3}Si and U{sub 3}Si{sub 2} amorphous at temperatures below about 250 C and that U{sub 3}Si becomes mechanically unstable suffering rapid growth by plastic flow. In this present work, crystallographic changes preceding amorphization by fission fragment damage have been studied by high-resolution neutron diffraction as a function of damage produced by uranium fission at room temperature. Initially, both silicides had tetragonal crystal structures. Crystallographic and amorphous phases were studied simultaneously by combining conventional Rietveld refinement of the crystallographic phases with Fourier-filtering analysis of the non-crystalline scattering component. 13 refs., 5 figs.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Lab., IL (USA)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE/ER
• DOE Contract Number: W-31109-ENG-38
• OSTI ID: 6287864
• Report Number(s): CONF-901105-66; ON: DE91006502; TRN: 91-002283
• Resource Relation: Conference: Fall meeting of the Materials Research Society, Boston, MA (USA), 24 Nov - 1 Dec 1990
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
URANIUM SILICIDES
PHYSICAL RADIATION EFFECTS
AMORPHOUS STATE
CRYSTAL STRUCTURE
IRRADIATION
LATTICE PARAMETERS
NEUTRON DIFFRACTION
ACTINIDE COMPOUNDS
COHERENT SCATTERING
DIFFRACTION
RADIATION EFFECTS
SCATTERING
SILICIDES
SILICON COMPOUNDS
URANIUM COMPOUNDS
360605* - Materials- Radiation Effects
360602 - Other Materials- Structure & Phase Studies