Ag Transport Through Non-Irradiated and Irradiated SiC

Technical Report · Mon Jan 11 04:00:00 EST 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1242964· OSTI ID:1242964

Szlufarska, Izabela ^[1]; Morgan, Dane ^[2]; Blanchard, James ^[2]

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1. Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States); Nuclear Energy University Programs
2. Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)

Silicon carbide is the main barrier to diffusion of fission products in the current design of TRistuctural ISOtropic (TRISO) coated fuel particles, and Ag is one of the few fission products that have been shown to escape through this barrier. Because the SiC coating in TRISO is exposed to radiation throughout the lifetime of the fuel, understanding of how radiation changes the transport of the fission products is essential for the safety of the reactor. The goals of this project are: (i) to determine whether observed variation in integral release measurements of Ag through SiC can be explained by differences in grain size and grain boundary (GB) types among the samples; (2) to identify the effects of irradiation on diffusion of Ag through SiC; (3) to discover phenomena responsible for significant solubility of Ag in polycrystalline SiC. To address these goals, we combined experimental analysis of SiC diffusion couples with modeling studies of diffusion mechanisms through bulk and GBs of this material. Comparison between results obtained for pristine and irradiated samples brings in insights into the effects of radiation on Ag transport.

• Research Organization: University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
• DOE Contract Number: AC07-05ID14517
• OSTI ID: 1242964
• Report Number(s): DOE/NEUP--11-2988; 11-2988
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS
ATOM TRANSPORT
COATED FUEL PARTICLES
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
DESIGN
DIFFUSION
FISSION PRODUCTS
GRAIN BOUNDARIES
GRAIN SIZE
IRRADIATION
PHYSICAL RADIATION EFFECTS
POLYCRYSTALS
SILICON CARBIDES
SILVER
SOLUBILITY
VARIATIONS