Accelerated thermal property mapping of TRISO advanced nuclear fuel

Moorehead, Michael; Hua, Zilong; Vallejo, Kevin; Beausoleil II, Geoffrey Leonard; Khanolkar, Amey; Gerczak, Tyler; Khafizov, Marat; Hurley, David

doi:10.1016/j.mtadv.2023.100455

Accelerated thermal property mapping of TRISO advanced nuclear fuel

Journal Article · Sat Dec 09 00:00:00 EST 2023 · Materials Today Advances

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mtadv.2023.100455· OSTI ID:2293540

^[1]; Hua, Zilong ^[1]; Vallejo, Kevin ^[1]; Beausoleil II, Geoffrey Leonard ^[1]; Khanolkar, Amey ^[1]; ^[2]; Khafizov, Marat ^[3]; Hurley, David ^[1]

Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States)

TRistructural ISOtropic (TRISO) fuel is a leading-edge nuclear fuel form representing a departure from the more traditional nuclear fuel forms utilized in the reactor fleet of today. Rather than a monolithic fuel pellet of uranium dioxide, integral fuel forms containing TRISO fuel are composed of thousands of microencapsulated uranium-bearing fuel kernels and individually coated with multiple layers of pyrolytic carbon and silicon carbide. These multilayered ceramic coatings serve as an environmental barrier to ensure radioactive and chemically reactive fission products are contained within the reactor fuel elements, but also participate in the transfer of heat generated in the nuclear fuel to the coolant – the primary purpose of a nuclear reactor. Since traditional thermal property measurement techniques, such as laser flash analysis, would be unable to resolve the thermal properties of the individual TRISO coating layers, a simplified frequency-domain thermoreflectance technique has been developed to rapidly map the thermal properties of TRISO particles. Using this technique, the thermal properties of TRISO particles have been mapped from room temperature up to 1000 °C to examine the spatial variation and temperature-dependency of the thermal properties within each layer. Additionally, spatial-domain thermoreflectance was used to examine the anisotropy of the thermal properties for each layer at different locations within a single TRISO particle, and across multiple TRISO particles to assess the intra- and inter-particle uniformity of thermal properties, respectively. To elucidate the underlying causes for the measured variations in thermal properties, scanning electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy were used to examine variations in microstructure and chemical bonding within the different coating layers. Results from this work are then compared with previous examinations of TRISO fuel particles and microstructurally driven mechanisms for the variations in the measured thermal properties of the different carbonaceous layers are discussed.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States); Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC07-05ID14517; AC05-00OR22725

OSTI ID:: 2293540

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 2440997

Report Number(s):: INL/JOU-23-74697-Rev.000; TRN: US2408933

Journal Information:: Materials Today Advances, Vol. 21; ISSN 2590-0498

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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