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Consolidation of commercial-size UO2 fuel pellets using spark plasma sintering and microstructure/microchemical analysis

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Abstract

The development of advanced fuel fabrication technologies is important for developing accident-tolerant fuels and engineering fuels for safer and more effective nuclear energy systems. In this work, commercial-size uranium dioxide (UO2) fuel pellets with a theoretical density of 95% were consolidated by spark plasma sintering (SPS) at 1600°C for 5 min. Systematic investigations suggest uniform densification and stoichiometric UO2 with an ideal fluorite structure across the commercial-size fuel pellet, but with a distributed grain structure because of non-uniform distribution of temperature during sintering. This work demonstrates a great potential of using SPS for fabricating nuclear fuels at a cost-effective manner.

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Acknowledgment

This work is supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy under a Nuclear Engineer University Program (award number: DE-NE0008440) and an internal support by Westinghouse Electric Company in developing advanced technology for fuel fabrication.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 12180, USA

    Bowen Gong, Tiankai Yao & Jie Lian

  2. Westinghouse Electrical Company, Hopkins, SC, 29061, USA

    Cai Lu, Peng Xu & Edward Lahoda

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  1. Bowen Gong
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  2. Tiankai Yao
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Correspondence to Jie Lian.

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Gong, B., Yao, T., Lu, C. et al. Consolidation of commercial-size UO2 fuel pellets using spark plasma sintering and microstructure/microchemical analysis. MRS Communications 8, 979–987 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2018.121

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