| Abstract Scope |
The advanced ceramic fuel development program is exploring revolutionary ceramic fuels with the potential of “game-changing” impact on reactor operation & response to beyond design scenario. Key properties of advanced ceramic fuels include high thermal conductivity, oxidation resistance, high temperature mechanical properties, improved accident tolerance and transient performance. In this talk, recent advancements of using field-assisted sintering technologies, specifically spark plasma sintering (SPS), in fabricating advanced fuels and engineering fuel matrix will be discussed. In particular, oxides fuels with or without sintering additive are fabricated with controlled microstructure from very larger grained structure to dense nano-sized microstructure in mimicking high burnup structure. Their thermomechanical properties and transient conditions under rapid power ramping are characterized and correlated with their microstructures. |