Effects of spark plasma sintering parameters on mechanical and thermal properties of U3Si2 pellets

Abstract

BackgroundU3Si2 is regarded as one of the most promising accident-tolerant nuclear fuels for light water reactors and is expected to replace the UO2 nuclear fuel in the future. Currently, spark plasma sintering (SPS) is an advanced technique for preparing U3Si2 pellets; however, the influence of SPS parameters on the performance of the pellets is unclear.PurposeThis study aims to investigate the effects of different sintering parameters (temperature and pressure) on the mechanical and thermal properties of the U3Si2 pellets prepared using SPS technology.MethodsThe thermal diffusivity of U3Si2 pellets was measured using a laser flash apparatus, and the thermal conductivity of the pellets was calculated. The mechanical properties of the pellets, including hardness, Young's modulus, and fracture toughness, were measured using nanoindenter. Thereafter, the influence of different sintering temperatures in the range of 1 000~1 300 ℃ and pressures in the range of 30~90 MPa on the mechanical and thermal properties of U3Si2 pellets were carefully examined.ResultsThe measurement results show that the thermal conductivity of the as-synthesized pellets increases linearly with temperature in the range 27~700 ℃. Moreover, increasing the sintering temperature and pressure improves the thermal conductivity of the U3Si2 pellets. The hardness and Young's modulus of the pellets increase with an increase in sintering temperature. They also exhibit a trend of first increasing and then stabilizing with increasing pressure, and tend to fully stabilize at 60 MPa. Moreover, the fracture toughness of the pellets decreases with the increase of sintering temperature and increases with increasing pressure.ConclusionsBased on the above results, optimized SPS parameters for the U3Si2 pellets are proposed, and this study provides a reference for the preparation of high-performance U3Si2 pellets.

Keywords

• u3si2
• accident-tolerant fuel
• spark plasma sintering
• thermal properties
• mechanical properties