Effects of uranium metal carbon content on hydriding kinetics and corrosion blister number/area at sub-ambient pressures

Pital, Aaron Christopher; Campbell, Keri; Richards, Andrew Walter; Kelly, Daniel

doi:10.1007/s10967-023-09305-5

Effects of uranium metal carbon content on hydriding kinetics and corrosion blister number/area at sub-ambient pressures

Journal Article · Tue Jan 09 00:00:00 EST 2024 · Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-023-09305-5· OSTI ID:2282540

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Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Carbon is a common impurity in uranium metal, resulting in a number of uranium–carbon inclusion phases that contribute to an increase in metal defect density as carbon content increases. It is widely held that uranium hydride corrosion preferentially nucleates at these defect sites, and that an increase in carbon content will therefore represents an increase in uranium hydride corrosion sites on the metal surface. We hydrided six uranium sources with differing carbon contents to explore whether this assumption holds in a sub-ambient (~ 0.1 atm hydrogen), sealed environment, and report the resulting reaction kinetics and uranium hydride blister benchmarking data. We find that carbon content is not strongly correlated with reaction kinetics terms or the resulting hydride blister number and area, but that there is a tight relationship between corrosion blister number/area and kinetics as is expected. Further, we find that there is a strong trend of decreasing variance in the blister number, blister area, and induction time as carbon content increases (higher carbon content results in more reproducible blister populations). Additionally, we find a narrow band of uranium metal consumption at the end of the parabolic phase of reaction progress (beginning of linear growth phase) of 0.098 ± 0.011 w/w%, a fact that may be useful in assaying hydrogen corrosion of uranium metal within sealed environments generally.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

Grant/Contract Number:: 89233218CNA000001

OSTI ID:: 2282540

Report Number(s):: LA-UR--23-29957

Journal Information:: Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, Journal Name: Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry Vol. 333; ISSN 0236-5731

Publisher:: SpringerCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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uranium inclusions
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Effects of uranium metal carbon content on hydriding kinetics and corrosion blister number/area at sub-ambient pressures

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