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Development of a new casting method to fabricate U–Zr alloy containing minor actinides
- Source :
- Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry. 299:103-109
- Publication Year :
- 2013
- Publisher :
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2013.
-
Abstract
- Metal fuel slugs of U–Zr alloys for a sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) have conventionally been fabricated using an injection casting method. However, casting alloys containing volatile radioactive constituents, such as Am, are problematic in a conventional injection casting method. As an alternative fabrication method, low pressure gravity casting has been developed. Casting soundness, microstructural characteristics, alloying composition, density, and fuel losses were evaluated for the following as-cast fuel slugs: U–10 wt% Zr, U–10 wt% Zr–5 wt% RE, and U–10 wt% Zr–5 wt% RE–5 wt% Mn. The U and Zr contents were uniform throughout the matrix, and impurities such as oxyen, carbon, and nitrogen satisfied the specification of total impurities less than 2,000 ppm. The appearance of the fuel slugs was generally sound, and the internal integrity was shown to be satisfactory based on gamma-ray radiography. In a volatile surrogate casting test, the U–Zr–RE–Mn fuel slug showed that nearly all of the manganese was retained when casting was done under an inert atmosphere.
- Subjects :
- Zirconium
Fabrication
Materials science
Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis
Zirconium alloy
Metallurgy
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
chemistry.chemical_element
Manganese
Pollution
Analytical Chemistry
Nuclear Energy and Engineering
chemistry
Impurity
Casting (metalworking)
Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and imaging
Inert gas
Carbon
Spectroscopy
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 15882780 and 02365731
- Volume :
- 299
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........62e263c9ed87da6ae536f2f5d924747a