Kr ion irradiation study of the depleted-uranium alloys

Abstract

Fuel development for the reduced enrichment research and test reactor (RERTR) program is tasked with the development of new low enrichment uranium nuclear fuels that can be employed to replace existing high enrichment uranium fuels currently used in some research reactors throughout the world. For dispersion type fuels, radiation stability of the fuel–cladding interaction product has a strong impact on fuel performance. Three depleted-uranium alloys are cast for the radiation stability studies of the fuel–cladding interaction product using Kr ion irradiation to investigate radiation damage from fission products. SEM analysis indicates the presence of the phases of interest: U(Al, Si) 3, (U, Mo)(Al, Si) 3, UMo 2Al 20, U 6Mo 4Al 43 and UAl 4. Irradiations of TEM disc samples were conducted with 500 keV Kr ions at 200 °C to ion doses up to 2.5 × 10 19 ions/m 2 (∼10 dpa) with an Kr ion flux of 10 16 ions/m 2/s (∼4.0 × 10 −3 dpa/s). Microstructural evolution of the phases relevant to fuel–cladding interaction products was investigated using transmission electron microscopy.