Uranium nitride-silicide advanced nuclear fuel: higher efficiency and greater safety

L. Wilson, Tashiema; Moore, Emily; Adorno, Denise; Kocevski, Vancho; Soooby Wood, Elizabeth; White, Josh; Nelson, Andrew; Mcmurray, Jake; Middleburgh, Simon; Xu, Peng; Besmann, Theodore M.

doi:10.1080/17436753.2018.1521607

Uranium nitride-silicide advanced nuclear fuel: higher efficiency and greater safety

Conference · Thu Nov 01 04:00:00 EDT 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1080/17436753.2018.1521607· OSTI ID:1649647

L. Wilson, Tashiema ^[1]; Moore, Emily ^[1]; Adorno, Denise ^[1]; Kocevski, Vancho ^[1]; Soooby Wood, Elizabeth ^[2]; White, Josh ^[3]; Nelson, Andrew ^[4]; ^[5]; Middleburgh, Simon ^[6]; Xu, Peng ^[7]; Besmann, Theodore M. ^[1]

University of South Carolina, Columbia
University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA)
Los Alamos National Lab -
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)
ORNL
Bangor University, UK
Westinghouse Electric Company, Columbia

As part of Accident Tolerant Fuel initiative for light water reactors, uranium silicide and silicide-nitride are being considered as fuels that can be combined with a more robust cladding such as a ferritic (FeCrAl) alloy. Although these materials have been studied in the past, uncertainties remain concerning the fundamental behaviour of these systems. In this study, four compositions between U3Si5 and USi2 were fabricated by arc-melting. Additionally, in an effort to understand the UN–U3Si2 fuel system, an unidentified U–Si–N ternary was observed in samples fabricated by arc-melting U3Si2 in the presence of varied concentrations of N2 in Ar. The analyses of compositions prepared to investigate these systems include structural characterisation using X-ray diffraction and compositional analysis employing scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectrometry. Initial values of the Gibbs energy parameters via the CALPHAD (CALculation of PHAse Diagrams) method have been developed for the ternary phases observed upon U3Si2–FeCrAl interactions.

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Research Organization:: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

DOE Contract Number:: AC05-00OR22725

OSTI ID:: 1649647

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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