NSUF 25-5446: Irradiation Effects on Nanolayered Nuclear Fuels
Metallic nuclear fuels offer significant advantages over commonly used ceramic fuels like UO2 as they possess higher thermal conductivity, high power density, improved neutronic properties, and enhanced safety margins. During irradiation, bombardment by energetic particles leads to the formation of point defects (vacancies and interstitials) in the material. These point defects can subsequently form clusters and grow into extended defects such as dislocation loops, voids and stacking fault tetrahedra. Adding additional interfaces, either as grain boundaries or between dissimilar materials/alloys, creates complications in attempting to understand underlying physical mechanisms for defect creation due to the sharp change in orientation and chemistry. However, these interfaces also pose potential advantages in irradiation environments due to their ability to act as defect sinks, accumulating and potentially eliminating vacancies or interstitials caused by radiation. Strain at interfaces, and differences in chemical potential, can result in enhanced diffusion of elemental species and defects, allowing them to move to areas of lower energy and potentially be eliminated. This proposal is motivated by the need to study the effect of interfaces in nuclear fuels on microstructure and thermal property evolution under irradiation. The central hypothesis of this project is that the nanolayered, epitaxial superlattice structure of U and U+N will allow systematic studies of interface effects on irradiation and thermal performance of metallic fuels. The objectives of this study are to: (1) characterize irradiation induced defects in nanolayered epitaxial structure of U and U+N after proton irradiation at different doses and temperatures using advanced transmission electron microscopy (TEM) techniques, (2) evaluate thermal properties before and after irradiation, (3) fundamentally understand how the presence of interfaces changes microstructures and thermal properties under irradiation by integrating experimental and computational modeling efforts.
Additional Info
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Awarded Institution | Idaho National Laboratory |
| DOI | 10.46936/NSUF/60015386 |
| Embargo End Date | 2027-09-03 |
| Facility Tech Lead | Lin Shao, Noé Morales |
| Irradiation Facilities | Accelerator Laboratory |
| NSUF Call | FY 2025 RTE 2nd Call |
| PI | Kaustubh Bawane |
| PIE Facilities | Irradiated Materials Characterization Laboratory |
| Prep Facilities | Irradiated Materials Characterization Laboratory |
| Project Member | Dr Kaustubh Bawane, Postdoctoral Research Associate - Idaho National Laboratory |
| Project Member | Dr. Zilong Hua, Staff scientist - Idaho National Laboratory (https://orcid.org/0000000229423344) |
| Project Type | RTE |