About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2027 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Modeling, AI Applications, and Method Development in Nuclear Materials
|
| Presentation Title |
Balancing Radiation Tolerance and Tritium Retention: The Role of Grain Boundaries in LiAlO2 and LiAl5O8 |
| Author(s) |
Ankit Roy, Weilin Jiang, Andrew Casella, David Senor, Ayoub Soulami, Ram Devanathan |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Ankit Roy |
| Abstract Scope |
Lithium aluminate (LiAlO2) , has been used extensively for tritium production in tritium producing burnable absorber rods (TPBARs) due to their radiation tolerance, with grain boundaries playing a key role in governing both defect evolution and tritium transport during irradiation. Using molecular dynamics simulations of single-crystal and bicrystal systems, we show that GBs act as efficient defect sinks, suppressing radiation damage relative to single crystals through interstitial emission, most pronounced for lithium, less so for aluminum and oxygen, and weaker overall in its secondary phase LiAl5O8. Tritium migrates rapidly in LiAlO2, with diffusion coefficients agreeing with prior ab initio results; diffusion is further enhanced at GBs, while LiAl5O8 shows slower GB diffusion due to reduced free volume. These findings reveal a key trade-off where GBs mitigate radiation damage which is desirable but simultaneously accelerate tritium migration, an undesirable effect for TPBAR applications, providing mechanistic guidance for microstructural design balancing radiation tolerance and tritium retention. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: |
| Keywords |
Computational Materials Science & Engineering, Nuclear Materials, Ceramics |