A mesoscale stress model for irradiated U10Mo monolithic fuels based on evolution of volume fraction/radius/internal pressure of bubbles

Abstract

Fracture near the U10Mo/cladding material interface impacts fuel service life. In this work, a mesoscale stress model is developed with the fuel foil considered as a porous medium having gas bubbles and bearing bubble pressure and surface tension. The models for the evolution of bubble volume fraction, size and internal pressure are also obtained. For a U10Mo/Al monolithic fuel plate under location-dependent irradiation, the finite element simulation of the thermo-mechanical coupling behavior is implemented to obtain the bubble distribution and evolution behavior together with their effects on the mesoscale stresses. The numerical simulation results indicate that higher macroscale tensile stresses appear close to the locations with the maximum increments of fuel foil thickness, which is intensively related to irradiation creep deformations. The maximum mesoscale tensile stress is more than 2 times of the macroscale one on the irradiation time of 98 days, which results from the contributions of considerable volume fraction and internal pressure of bubbles. This study lays a foundation for the fracture mechanism analysis and development of a fracture criterion for U10Mo monolithic fuels. Keywords: Bubble volume fraction, Bubble pressure, Bubble size, Mesoscale stress, Fuel fracture mechanism