About this Abstract |
Meeting |
2024 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
Symposium
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Ceramics and Ceramic-based Composites for Nuclear Fission Applications
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Presentation Title |
Multiphysics and Multiscale Modeling of Micro- and Macro- cracking in High Burnup UO2 Fuels |
Author(s) |
Merve Gencturk, Nicholas Faulkner, Abdurrahman Ozturk, Mohammed Abdoelatef, David Andersson, Michael William Donald Cooper, Larry K. Aagesen, Wen Jiang, Jason Harp, Karim Ahmed |
On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Merve Gencturk |
Abstract Scope |
There is a growing interest from the U.S. nuclear industry to increase the fuel peak burnup (BU). However, it is well-established that for LWR fuels, the fission gas release rate and probability of fuel fragmentation rapidly increase at HBU. The cracking patterns during transients are distinct from base irradiation caracks and the crack size is strongly dependent on BU, and micro-cracking at HBU is associated with the increase in gas release. To investigate these complex and inter-dependent processes, we employ a multi-physics and multiscale approach that combines rate-theory, phase-field, and finite-element techniques. This framework accounts for burnup-dependent degradation of thermo-mechanical properties and microstructure-dependent elastic and fracture properties. The different cracking patterns and fragment sizes as function of burnup, temperature, underlying microstructure are investigated thoroughly and compared to recent data of HBU fuels. |
Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: |
Keywords |
Nuclear Materials, Computational Materials Science & Engineering, |